New Game
by Daricio
Summary: An accident with the machine leaves Sans trapped in an unfamiliar world, alone. Everything here is different: the monsters, the humans, the magic... And this game was never meant to have a pacifist mode. * Sans joins a party and goes on a quest. Kinda JRPG style. Also, there's a run-in with a necromancer. Cross-posted from my AO3 account.
1. New Game

Sans ignored the shakiness of his hands as he dug through the machinery in front of him. He ignored the smoke billowing out of the top of the contraption. Hardest of all, he ignored the thoughts bubbling up in the back of his mind that they'd never managed to get this thing to work even when it didn't look like the whole thing was about to explode.

"another fried circuit board," he mumbled to himself, pulling it gently out of the machine and starting to remove the wires. He had to salvage anything he possibly could from this mess. As it was, he would have to find something to replace the entire bottom of the outer shell. The crash landing had torn it and the electronics around it completely to shreds. Would this place even have the kind of metal he'd need to contain the heat from the power cell?

It didn't really matter anyway; the power cell was gone. He'd removed it himself, just before this whole thing had literally blown up in his face.

He'd never meant for this to happen. He hadn't planned on doing anything to the machine today, much less manage to activate it while all power to it—external and internal—had been cut. Honestly, he hadn't planned on doing anything to the machine ever again. He'd only gone down to the lab in the first place to retrieve his photo album, and maybe his old badge, before he and Papyrus left for their new home on the surface. The blueprints, the machine, everything else down there was going to stay locked away in Snowdin, forever. They couldn't go back, so they were going to move forward. Together.

Sans roughly shoved away thoughts of his brother as he focused back on the machine, kneeling down to open a panel on the side. If he let himself think of how he'd abandoned Papyrus, he would shut down entirely. He hadn't meant to, sure, but that didn't mean it wasn't true. Once again, this machine had ripped everything away from him.

Sparks danced past his fingers as he pulled out another circuit board. This one looked much less damaged than the other one, and he set it in his pile of salvageable materials with a sigh. What did it matter? Why was he still trying? Everything was broken, and he didn't even have the blueprints with him anymore.

The stupid machine hadn't even brought him anywhere close to where they'd been trying to make it go. It had landed in some abandoned field in the middle of nowhere. The sky above had grown dark since he'd started on his task, and while he was grateful that there at least was a real sky here rather than a perpetually dark cavern roof, a quick glance around was enough to confirm that he didn't recognize any of the constellations. He had no idea where he'd ended up. Only that he was very far from home, and very, very far from his brother.

Sans slumped back in defeat, fists clenching unconsciously around the short blades of grass at his sides as he knelt there in front of the machine. His smile remained fixed in place, but his eyes had long since gone dark. Papyrus… was he never going to see his brother again? How had he managed to screw up this badly? Again?

"come on," he told himself softly. "don't go there. don't give up just yet. you don't have anyone to pull you out of it this time, remember?"

But that only made him feel worse. This was all his fault. He was stuck, alone, and what would Papyrus think when he realized he was alone, too?

Gritting his teeth even harder than usual, Sans forced himself to his feet, reaching over and opening another panel on the machine, one that was closer to the top. He should probably figure out what was smoking up there. If something was on fire…

Sudden movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, something flying straight at him. He ducked, jumping away from the machine and reflexively whirling around to grab his assailant's arm.

"h-hey," he said shakily. A bead of sweat dripped down his face as he struggled to hold back the force of the attack. "that ain't nice. is that any way to greet a new pal?"

The person in front of him—a human boy, quite a bit older than Frisk—pulled away from him, yanking his arm free from Sans' grasp. Nervously, Sans noted that the boy held a long metal sword in that hand, and he braced himself in case of a second attack.

Instead, the boy just stared at him with a flabbergasted expression. Had this human never seen a monster before? There was a very high probability of that. Slowly, Sans slid his hands into his pockets, trying to seem harmless.

"i'm sans. sans the skeleton. you're a human, right?"

With a quick, sharp movement, the boy shook his head, as though to clear it. "You've gotta be kidding me. A skeleton that talks?"

That was an odd statement. "of course i talk. why wouldn't i?"

"Uh, the lack of vocal chords, maybe?" He still sounded baffled, but at least he no longer looked as aggressive.

Sans chuckled a little. "monsters are made mostly of magic. i guess you could say you'll never catch me at a loss for words over something like that." He winked.

"Er, well... None of the other skeletons talk, they just attack on sight..." The boy coughed a little, and thankfully, he sheathed his sword in a scabbard at his waist. "Er, sorry about that. I just figured you were one of them. Actually, I kind of thought you were a zombie when I first saw you. Uh, what are you?"

The words "other skeletons" piqued Sans' interest. "there are other skeletons here? where?"

"Just about everywhere," the boy said with a shrug. "They pop up all the time at night. I was just out here looking for some, to be honest, so I could grind for EXP."

It took a moment for the boy's words to sink in, but when they did, Sans reeled several steps backward, his defense instantly back up. "you're doing what?" He'd never heard the word "grind" used that way before, but he definitely knew EXP, and he could guess the boy's meaning from there.

The boy seemed to realize what he'd just said, and he stammered a bit, raising both hands in a surrender position. "I, uh, wait just a sec. That's not what I meant. Er, I mean, that is what I meant, but..."

Sans couldn't believe it'd taken him this long to check the boy's stats, especially considering he'd started this conversation with a surprise attack. Now that he looked, though, he nearly fell over in shock. LV 23? "just how many people have you killed?" he asked in a pained voice.

"N-nobody!" the boy protested. "I haven't killed anybody! They're just monsters! Er, I mean, I guess you're one, too? But you're different...?"

It was definitely time to get out of here. The boy didn't currently seem to want to fight him, but that didn't mean he wouldn't change his mind, and Sans had never liked fighting if he could avoid it. But if he ran now, he'd have to abandon the machine.

Maybe he could grab it and take it with him through a shortcut? But then he'd be leaving behind his piles of materials. Besides, where would he go? He could only shortcut somewhere if he knew it was there, and he knew nothing about this place. All he could see was mostly open prairie, with several clumps of trees here and there. No good places to hide. How had this kid even snuck up on him in the first place?

"Look, calm down," the boy tried to reassure him, slowly moving forward. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Sans backed away, chuckling softly. "sure, pal. tell you what. how about we just forget all this, go our separate ways, and pretend we never saw each other, kay?"

The boy looked almost disappointed at that. He opened his mouth to speak, but was suddenly interrupted by a loud ripping sound that Sans had never heard before. Sans whirled to face the new threat, only to realize in shock that several things were beginning to claw their way up out of the ground.

"Watch it," the boy warned, and Sans heard him draw his sword. "Here they come..."

Sans could only stare as hands—skeletal hands—appeared, followed slowly by arms, shoulders, heads, chests. Were they... naked? What were they doing underground? He'd never seen skeletons burrow before.

Curiously, Sans stepped towards them, only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder. He winced and pulled away from the boy, who gave him an unreadable look. "Trust me, they're not friendly. Stay behind me."

"pretty sure they've got more bones to pick with you than me," Sans pointed out flatly. "why would they attack me?"

His question was answered a second later as one of the five skeletons pulled itself completely free from the ground and immediately lunged at the closer of the two of them: Sans.

Startled, he danced out of the way, getting himself clear of the other monster's open-palmed swing. Was it trying to claw at him? Another of the skeletons freed itself, and this one went for the boy, but Sans couldn't pay attention to both attackers at the same time.

Thinking fast, he summoned a wall of bones. They tore up through the ground in a circle around him, shielding him on all sides. "hey, stop!" he yelled at the monster in front of him. "what are you doing?!"

He received no answer, and to his horror, the skeleton went for him as though his wall wasn't even there, barreling through the bones and simply taking the damage that went with it. Sans side-stepped, ducking under the monster's next swing, and moved what was left of his wall into a tighter circle. Did these guys have no sense of self-preservation at all?

Apparently not. With no regard to the obvious outcome, the skeleton continued to throw itself at his defenses. Its eyes were blank sockets, with no life to them at all, and its jaw hung slack, clattering against its ribcage. It managed to tank another two hits before the bone wall simply reduced it to dust.

Sans grimaced as he felt his own EXP go up a small amount. He hadn't even attacked!

A metallic clanking noise caught his attention, and he realized that one of the skeletons was inexplicably attacking his machine. "hey! get away from that!" He reached out, activating his blue magic in an attempt to yank the monster away, but before he could, it managed to land a solid hit directly to an open, smoking panel, burying its skeletal hand in the delicate circuitry. Something inside squealed from the abuse, and a second later, the top of the machine exploded.

"no!"

Another skeleton shambled up behind Sans, but he didn't move, staring hollowly at the now completely ruined machine. Smoke and debris billowed everywhere, lightly obscuring the whole clearing. Slowly, he sank to his knees, overcome by a wave of hopelessness. It was over. It was all over. Above him, the monster swung down at his head, but Sans didn't care any more.

The blow never reached him; the boy leapt forward, his sword coming down to cleave through the attacking monster's chest. It crumbled into dust without a sound. Sans noted numbly that none of the other skeletons were around anymore. The kid must have killed them all.

A suffocating silence fell over them as the dust and smoke began to settle. Quietly, the boy put his sword away and went to Sans' side. "I'm... sorry. What... what was it?" he asked, gesturing to the ruined, burning mess.

"... my only way home," Sans replied miserably, his eyes totally dark. His only way home, and now it was completely destroyed. He barely had to look at it to tell there'd be nothing salvageable left. He'd have to rebuild the entire machine from scratch. With no blueprints. And no materials. "oh, god... papyrus, i'm so sorry..."

The boy awkwardly let him sit there for a minute or so before he reached a hand down to him. "We should go before they come back. Like I said, they pop up all the time at night, and they attack just about anything that moves. And, uh, some things that don't move." When Sans didn't respond, he hooked an arm around the skeleton and physically forced him to his feet. "Come on. We need to go."

"go where?" Sans asked dully.

"There's a town just a mile or so east of here," the boy explained, and he began to shove Sans forwards.

Sans wouldn't start walking. "why?"

The boy gave a wry chuckle. "I don't know why people build towns," he joked. "It's just there. Come on." Sans still didn't move. "Please. I'm not going to leave you out here if you're just going to let yourself get killed by the next wave of skeletons that comes by."

"why do you care?"

That seemed to catch the boy off guard a bit, and he stopped pushing. For a moment, he didn't seem to know what to say, but then his mouth set in a hard line. "Well, someone needs to, and you obviously don't. Come on."

Then, to Sans' mild surprise, the boy picked him up, throwing him over one shoulder, and began walking. The skeleton just apathetically watched the wrecked machine as it got further and further away.

"I'm Karak, by the way," the boy finally introduced himself. "It's nice to meet you, Sans. Now let's see if we can find a way to get you home."


	2. Join the Party

When Sans opened his eyes, it was to a completely unfamiliar room. It looked solidly built, the walls made with thick wood and the ceiling high enough to accommodate rafters crisscrossing its length. He rolled to his side to find that he lay in a sturdy bed, with a desk and chair right beside it. On the other side of the room was a second bed, the blankets in a twisted heap down at the bottom. Other than that, the room was empty, with a single door and no windows. This meant it was a little dark, but a lamp of some sort hung on the wall by the door to provide light.

"where am i?" He mumbled to himself. Then the memories flooded back. He'd stupidly decided to try to dismantle the machine instead of just leaving it there to rot like he should have, and now... now...

Sans rubbed his face with both hands. He'd really made a mess of things.

But he wasn't going to make anything better just sitting there. It took every drop of effort and willpower he had left, but he dragged himself out of the bed, put on his slippers, which he found placed carefully on the floor beside him, and began opening up drawers in the desk. In the first drawer, he found sheets of paper. That was a start. There were no pencils or pens to be found, though. Eventually, he found what looked like an old-fashioned quill pen and a bottle of ink. He sighed. It'd have to do for now.

Arranging everything on the desk, he popped open the ink bottle and dipped the pen in, hastily sketching out the basic form of the machine. He knew he wouldn't be able to remember everything, but he figured he should write down what he could before he forgot.

The pages slowly filled with sketches, wingdings, and ink blots. (who in their right mind still wrote with a quill and ink, anyway?)

Sans jumped a bit when the door to the room opened, and he twisted around to see Karak walking in. The boy stopped when he saw Sans at the desk, blinking at him in surprise. "Oh. You're up. That's good, I was a bit worried."

With a shrug, Sans smiled. "eh, i can't be a lazy bones when my bro's counting on me to find a way home." The boy's presence unnerved him slightly, what with the whole being-a-murderous-human thing, but he hadn't hurt Sans so far, and he had in fact kind of saved his life, so... "uh. thanks for helping me. i kind of turned into a skeleton statue back there."

Karak came in and closed the door. "No problem. You're surprisingly light. Which, I guess makes sense. What are you working on?"

Sans turned back to his decidedly messy page. "trying to remember how the machine was supposed to go together. my brother and i spent a lot of time working on it, but we weren't the ones who originally built the thing, so it's... difficult."

"Sorry." Karak leaned on the back of the chair to look over his shoulder, and he gave a low whistle. "That looks pretty impressive. I didn't realize it was so complicated inside."

"yup," Sans replied tiredly. "so, where are we, anyway?"

Karak glanced around the room. "The town inn. I think this place is called... Hayburrow or something like that? It was kind of fun last night trying to sneak you in past the guards."

For a moment, Sans was confused, but then he laughed. "oh, right. i guess people around here wouldn't take too kindly to a monster waltzing into town."

"Not really." Karak smiled. "Thankfully, you wear such loose clothing, it pretty much covered anything telling. Just had to pull your hood up, put a blanket over you, and tell people you were my brother. Er, hope you don't mind."

"well, i am kind of... 'sans' a brother right at the moment," Sans winked at him. "so i guess you could fill in for him for now." It kind of hurt to say that, but he couldn't pass up the joke opportunity.

Karak snorted, shaking his head. "Does it... bother you to be called a 'monster'?"

Sans shrugged, a little surprised by the question. "no. why would it bother me? does it bother you to be called a 'human'?"

"It's just, well, the word has a lot of negative connotations to it..." Karak wandered over and sat on the edge of the bed nearest the desk, leaning an arm on the wooden surface while trying to avoid messing up any of Sans' work.

"that's not surprising. monsters and humans don't usually get along, for various reasons. the word 'human' sounds pretty bad where i'm from, but it's actually been starting to change lately." Too bad he was no longer there to enjoy that...

Karak seemed pleased. "That's good, I guess. I don't think that's going to happen around here anytime soon, though. By the way, are you hungry? I mean, I don't know if skeletons get hungry, but I didn't think they slept either, so..."

Sans had to smile at the boy's curiosity. "i sleep more than most," he admitted. "i'm pretty lazy. my bro hardly sleeps at all. he always has so much energy all the time..." He trailed off, thinking of all of Papyrus' amusing rants. What he wouldn't give to have his brother yelling at him again...

Wow, he was doing a super good job of staying optimistic about all this. Sans tried to push away his gloom, but it stuck to him stubbornly.

After watching him for a moment, Karak shook his head and dug in a pouch attached to his belt, pulling out a small stack of what looked like protein bars. "You didn't actually answer my question, but here, you can have these if you are hungry."

Sans gratefully accepted, but stopped and frowned down at them in his hands. "uh... i don't suppose these are made of magic, are they?"

Karak's eyebrows knit together in mild confusion. "Why would they be made of magic? It's just food."

With a sigh, Sans put the stack on the desk, grinning at the boy. "human food and skeletons don't mix well. see, watch."

He grabbed a single bar, unwrapped the top of it, and took a bite. Immediately, his smile turned into a grimace as he felt the piece of food clatter noisily down through his rib cage. He laughed, pulled up his shirt so he could dig whatever it was out of his pelvis, then dropped the bit on the desk along with the rest of the bar.

Sans had fun reading Karak's expression. It was a mix of horror, disgust, and maybe a bit of curiosity. The boy gave a short laugh. "Well. Okay. So that's a thing."

The skeleton snickered at him, then turned back to his work, picking up the pen. "don't worry about it. i am a little hungry, but i don't need to eat to survive. eating just replenishes my magic and health." He was more hungry than he let on, but he didn't want to make a big deal about it. Now he found himself missing Grillby's, too.

"Replenishes magic, huh?" Karak hummed contemplatively, then dug in his pouch again. "Here, maybe try this."

'This' was a small bottle of a green bubbling liquid. Sans raised an eyebrow at Karak, slowly setting the pen down again. "we did just establish that human food and drink just goes through me, right? i'd rather not get my hoodie all wet."

Karak waved it at him. "It's a magicka potion. It refills your magic bar. It's the sort of thing you can drink quickly during battle, so I think it's made of magic."

Sans wasn't quite convinced. "also, that looks disgusting."

"It is," Karak agreed. "But it's not as bad as it looks, and it does its job. Try just a little sip?"

The skeleton finally grudgingly took the bottle, giving Karak an amused grin. "so, one way or the other, you're determined to make me turn green, huh? fine, have it your way." He took off the lid, stared uncertainly down at the weird liquid for a moment, then squeezed his eyes shut and quickly chugged it.

He couldn't help but to gag at the taste, and he started coughing. "oh, god, that's terrible!" he finally got out.

Karak laughed. "Yeah," he agreed. "But it does its job. Hey, your eyes look brighter now."

Sans grimaced up at him. "well, color me surprised. and green," he chuckled. His magic reserves felt completely full again, and he wasn't the least bit wet. "i guess this means i'm on a liquid sludge diet while i'm here. that sounds like fun."

"I'll try to find something better," Karak promised. "Do your eyes always get brighter when your magic is full?"

In response, Sans turned his eyelights off, giving Karak his biggest, creepiest grin. " **you ask too many questions.** "

The boy jerked away, letting out a startled cry. He probably would have fallen completely over if he hadn't been sitting on a bed, and as it was, he found himself almost halfway on the floor. Sans laughed at the over-the-top reaction, his eyes going back to normal as he put the bottle on the desk by the protein bars. "nah, i'm joking with you. you're hilarious."

It took Karak several seconds to recover. "Holy crap, Sans, that's scary!"

"i know," Sans snickered. "that's why i do it. great reaction, by the way."

Karak dragged himself quickly to his feet, holding out a hand to show Sans that he was still shaking. "Seriously! Can you just do that whenever you want? Can other people do it? How does it work?"

Sans waved him down gently. "hey, now, what did i just say?" He shook his head with amusement, then gestured back to his rough blueprint sketches with a sigh. "look. i'm glad you're helping me, but as much as i'd love to answer your questions about monsters, i really need to get back to this."

"Oh. Right. Sorry." Karak plopped himself down on the bed, obediently shutting up and instead simply watching Sans as the skeleton once again picked up the pen.

Right. Back to work. It was much easier to say than to actually start again. His diagram had so many blank spots and question marks, just looking at everything he had left to fill in intimidated him. Having this strange kid (who still had a worryingly high amount of LOVE, he reminded himself grimly) staring at him so intently didn't help at all.

Gritting his teeth, he made himself focus only on a single section and wrote down everything he could remember. This strip had to be approximately this length, this part needed to be wired like this, right here was the part that had always had something missing, so he had no clue what to do with it now...

Karak fidgeted as Sans worked, and a dozen times the boy looked to be on the edge of interrupting him with questions, but he managed to keep himself quiet. It drew Sans' attention each time he did it, though, and eventually, after a good half hour of this, the skeleton couldn't handle it any more.

Groaning softly, he dropped the pen on the desk and rubbed at his eyes. "oh, this is impossible," he mumbled to himself. "maybe i should head out and go look at what's left of the machine again."

"The guards will be harder to sneak past during the day," Karak pointed out. "And I hate to say it, but your big metal thing might not still be there. Stuff left outside in the middle of the night tends to... disappear."

Sans didn't have a response to that. Honestly, he should have expected something like this. Why would anything ever be easy for him? He kept his gaze locked darkly on the floor.

Karak hesitated for just a bit longer before he finally cracked. "What's your home like? Do you live with other skeletons?"

With a resigned sigh, Sans got up from the chair, then went to the other bed across the room and let himself flop down on it, staring up at the ceiling. It wouldn't kill him to answer a few questions, he supposed. "Just my bro," he said tiredly. "we live in a pretty small town, and it's just the two of us at our place."

"So, there aren't different towns for different kinds of monsters? I kind of pictured you living in, I dunno, Skeleton Land or something."

Sans snorted. "nah. that'd be boring. you've got the naming scheme about right, though. the guy who named our towns was... well. snowdin, hotland, waterfall. you can guess what those places are like."

"Cold, hot, and wet?" Karak guessed, grinning. He seemed happy that Sans was talking to him again. "What kinds of monsters live in your town?"

"lots," Sans shrugged. "mostly people with fur or some other way of staying warm. i live in snowdin. papyrus has a friend in waterfall who can't believe we can stand it there. but then, she's a fish monster, so..."

Karak gave him a contemplative look. "Papyrus... Your brother?"

Sans could only nod, looking away. Thinking about his brother abruptly brought back all the guilt and despair from the night before. This really was all his fault. What would Papyrus think when he went looking for Sans only to find the machine missing? Would he hate him for leaving?

He had to fix the machine. But how? It was impossible, it was mostly gone, maybe even completely gone, he'd never be able to do it. He'd never see Papyrus again...

"What's he like? Is he nice? Does he look like you?"

Roughly, Sans turned on his side, facing the wall. He absently grabbed the pillow and shoved it on top of his head. This kid didn't need to see him crying. He'd just ask stupid questions about how a skeleton could cry, anyway.

"Oh. Uh, sorry. Are you okay?" Karak sounded hesitant again.

Sans didn't answer, just glaring at the grain of the wood in front of him and pressing the pillow tighter over his head.

A long moment of silence passed before Karak spoke up softly. "I'm sorry. We'll find a way to get you home, I promise."

"you don't know what you're talking about," Sans said hollowly, voice muffled from the pillow. "it's impossible."

"Nothing's impossible," Karak argued, and Sans heard him get to his feet. "I'm sure if we just try, we'll find something-"

Sans couldn't help but to bark out a laugh. "wow. hard to believe someone with such a high LV can be so naive. the world doesn't work that way, kid. sometimes you just lose. nothing i do can fix this."

"What does my LV have to do with...?" Karak shook his head and began pacing the room. "Never mind that. You're wrong. There has to be something." Abruptly, the boy stopped dead in his tracks. "... No. There is something. Sans, have you ever heard of the Sacred Peaces?"

He didn't bother responding. Of course he hadn't. Why would he have heard of anything from this place?

Karak sat on the bed by Sans' feet. "They're a set of magical artifacts. They're actually the whole reason I'm out here questing in the first place. Legend has it that when all three of them are brought together, the one who has them will be granted a wish. Any wish."

Well, that sounded too good to be true. "what's the catch?"

"No catch. It'll give you anything you want. I think this land's current king is only king because of these things." Karak paused. "Well, I mean, the artifacts themselves are kind of hard to get to. Once someone makes a wish, they scatter again, and they always end up in these heavily guarded fortress type places. The good news is this!"

Sans turned reluctantly to look as Karak dug around in his pouch again, quickly pulling out two golden spheres. Karak grinned at him. "I already have two of them!" he said proudly, holding them out. They were small enough that both fit easily in one hand.

Curiously, Sans reached out to touch one of the spheres. It glowed faintly, and he could sense that the thing was packed with magic. "huh. and, if there's good news, i guess there's bad news?"

Karak shifted uncomfortably. "The last one is, uh... Well, I've tried a few times to get it, but I'm not strong enough to get through. Hence the, uh, grinding..."

Sans winced a little at the reminder. He'd been trying to avoid this awkward topic, but now that Karak had brought it up, Sans couldn't stop an accusing question from slipping out: "and you really can't think of a way to get stronger other than slaughtering monsters?"

"In my defense," Karak started, his face red, "you've seen the monsters here. They're all like that, not just the skeletons. You can't reason with them, I'm not even sure if they're even really alive, they just..." He trailed off at a dark look from Sans.

With an ashamed sigh, he glanced away, stuffing the two spheres back into his pouch. "But, uh... I guess it's not exactly... You're right. Going out of my way to kill things isn't... And there are other ways of getting experience points. Like from completing quests for people. But even then, a lot of those tend to be helping them get monsters to stop attacking their livestock and stuff."

The upset expression on Sans' face melted away into confusion and he sat up a bit, propping himself up on one arm. "experience points... from quests?"

Karak nodded. "Usually not very many, especially if they're just fetch quests. But if... if you want, I could try leveling up just with those," he said reluctantly.

Sans just examined him for a moment, looking him up and down. This whole time, something hadn't been adding up in his head quite right. Why would someone with such a high Level of Violence be so willing to help him so much? It went beyond simple curiosity. Karak seemed to be genuinely a good person. "karak... EXP is an acronym that stands for..."

"Experience points. I know. I just said that." Karak finally noticed the change in his tone and raised an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"experience points," Sans repeated, feeling a bit relieved. "not execution points. karak, what does LV stand for?"

Now the boy looked very confused. "Its just short for 'level'. It's a number that shows how strong you are. If you're LV 4, and you come up against an LV 15 boss, you know to run away."

Sans slumped back onto the bed, staring blankly up at the ceiling. "holy crap... this place is even further from home than i thought. i ended up in a completely different world, didn't i?"

For a moment, Karak didn't respond, and when he did, it was with a laugh. "Oh! Wow. I was wondering how you were able to take out that skeleton so fast when you're only LV 1. Are... are our leveling systems different?"

"apparently," Sans replied vaguely. Letting out a soft sigh, he looked away back at the wall. "that means there's even less chance of that thing being able to get me home."

"Never mind that!" Karak grabbed Sans' arms and pulled him back up into a sitting position. His eyes were dancing with excitement. "The point is, there is a chance! Sans, if you come with me to help me get the last Sacred Peace, I won't have to level up any more. It's always helpful to have more people along on a quest, and everything in there will underestimate you because you look like you're only LV 1!"

Sans gently tugged his hands away from Karak's. "i'm not a fighter," he said firmly. "i don't wanna hurt anyone if i can help it. monsters or humans."

The boy's enthusiasm didn't dim in the slightest. "I won't make you fight if you don't want to. I can handle the monsters that attack us, and-"

"letting you hurt people isn't any better," Sans pointed out dryly.

"T-then..." He faltered for a moment, but then his resolve returned with a fury. "Then we'll do it your way. We can try sneaking past the guards, and... and you can help me with any puzzles we come across. Please come with me, Sans."

Sans hesitated. "i won't be much help," he warned.

Karak shook his head. "But you're strong enough that you can handle yourself if things go wrong, so I won't have to worry about you. Please, Sans. If there's even a chance of this getting you home... If there's even a chance of this getting you back to your brother... don't you have to at least try?"

Sans looked away, his eyes darkened. Thinking of Papyrus almost sent him back into his spiral of depression, but imagining how his brother would react if he'd been the one thrown into this situation... Papyrus wouldn't give up, not when there was something he could do about it. People could say what they liked about Papyrus' naivety, about how overly-optimistic he could be no matter how unrealistic his dreams sometimes were, but that optimism was something he'd always admired about his brother.

If Papyrus were to see him like this, sitting around hopelessly, not even wanting to move he was so discouraged... well, Papyrus would probably tell him to go get a job. Or, in this case, at least help this kid, who seemed so determined to help him.

"Please," Karak tried again.

Sans let out a slow sigh, then rolled himself out of bed and onto his feet. From what Karak was describing, there was little to no chance of them actually being able to completely avoid fighting when they went to get this Sacred Peace thing. But still, the kid was willing to try, so he supposed he should be willing to give it a try, too.

"come on," Sans said, his usual grin returning to his face as he held out a hand to Karak. "i know a shortcut."


	3. Side Quests

Sans walked calmly through the long grass, head tilted upward as he enjoyed the feeling of the sun on his face. Despite all the things wrong with this place, there was something about being on the surface in the warm daylight that gave him some peace.

"That doesn't make any sense," Karak complained, walking beside him. "You're not from here, and I carried you into town while you were asleep. How could you possibly know a..." he trailed off, coming to a dead stop as he looked around with wide eyes. "Wait, what?"

His smile growing larger, Sans kept right on walking, closing his eyes.

Behind him, Karak sputtered. "But... but that's...! Sans, how did we get out here? You didn't tell me you could teleport!"

"i don't teleport," Sans corrected cheerily. "i take shortcuts. very efficient shortcuts."

"But..." Karak couldn't seem to find the right words for a second. "We didn't even go out the front door of the inn! The door leading to the hallway should not lead to exactly where I found you last night. How is that not teleporting?"

Sans just chuckled without responding, instead searching the area for signs of his machine. There wasn't much. A long, shallow ditch where all the grass had been forcibly uprooted marked where he'd landed, and a vague circle of soot showed the extent of the explosion, but as Karak had predicted, the machine itself was gone. He could see a few random bits and pieces of metal and wire here and there, but nothing he'd be able to get any information from.

"Don't just ignore me! That was like a fifteen minute walk going the other way. You teleported us!"

Sans shook his head, feigning disbelief. "what, you've never taken a shortcut through time and space before? weird." He gave Karak a wink.

Karak gave an exasperated sigh, but Sans could see he was smiling. "Fine. Whatever. Why'd you take us all the way over here?"

"figured i might as well check it out, just in case there was anything left." Sans shrugged. "more importantly, this is the only other place i've been here, and of the two spots i know in this world, this is the one that doesn't have any humans to avoid. which way are we going?"

"So you can only teleport places you've been before," Karak said thoughtfully. Before Sans could correct him or tease him about the terminology again, the boy continued, "The tower we're headed to is east of town, which is east of here. So we kind of went exactly the wrong direction, but that's okay."

"oops. sorry 'bout that." Sans shrugged with a smile. He could probably manage to shortcut back to outside the town gates if he tried, but it wouldn't be very precise, and there was no way of knowing who'd be standing there when they arrived.

Karak just shook his head and began to walk. "That's okay," he said again cheerfully. "That means we have time for more questions! Do you have anything you want to know about this place?"

"not really," Sans admitted lazily, following after him. "but if you want to talk, go ahead."

Karak happily took him up on his offer, describing in great detail the village where he grew up, his family (one sister and one brother, both younger, all living with their parents) and their few neighbors.

"My sister wanted to come with me out here," he mentioned at one point. "But I've always been the more adventurous of the two of us, so I already had a few levels by the time I left, just from wandering around running errands and hunting for my family and stuff. My dad says some people are just born to be adventurers, and as much as my sister wishes otherwise, she's just not cut out for that sort of lifestyle. I don't want her to get hurt, you know?"

Sans made a vague noise of acknowledgement, but he really only half listened to what Karak said, his thoughts mostly lingering on the sketches he'd carefully folded into an inside pocket of his jacket. They were probably useless to him at this point, but it was really the only thing he had left, as he rather doubted that this artifact thing would work.

His vague hopes of maybe trying to rebuild the machine were only scattered further when he thought to ask Karak about electricity and only got a blank stare in response.

"it's, uh, kinda like lightning, but you use it to power stuff like lights," the skeleton explained rather lamely.

"Lightning spells? Interesting. We sometimes use magic for lights, too, but usually not lightning magic," Karak commented, obviously not quite understanding. Sans didn't care enough to correct him, letting out a sigh as he imagined trying to get ahold of things like wires in a place like this.

"That wall you made last night was magic too, wasn't it?" Karak asked curiously. "How much MP does that take?"

That acronym was unfamiliar to him, but once Sans figured out that the boy wanted to know how much magic it used up to summon the bones, he shrugged. "not much, unless i summon a whole bunch at once, or use it for a long time." He pulled his left hand out of his pocket so he could materialize a white bone, twirling it carelessly between his fingers. "what about you? what's a kid like you doing carrying around a magic replenishing potion, anyway?"

Karak unsheathed his sword, still walking as he held it up. "Most of what I can do is sword stuff," he said easily, and he turned away from Sans enough to swing the blade in a vertical slash. As he did so, the sharp edge glowed and a white arc of bright light shot forward, traveling a good five meters before fizzling out. "But I also have a few magic items I found that let me do some fire attacks and stuff."

Sans nodded, idly tossing the bone into the air and letting it float there, spinning slowly. "ah. not many humans where i'm from use magic. the ones who do can be pretty powerful, but it's kinda rare."

"It's kind of the opposite here," Karak said. "Most monsters just claw at you or bite. Some have special attacks you have to watch out for, but other than that..." He shrugged. "I'm more of a melee fighter than anything else, though."

"I'm more of a pacifist than anything else," Sans joked.

"A freaking scary pacifist," Karak returned with a grin. "I'd probably classify you as a mage, if you weren't a skeleton."

Sans just shrugged, and Karak began explaining the different "classes" people could train to be in his world. Normally, Sans would have been fascinated by how everything here worked and how it differed from his own world, but right at the moment, he was still too distracted by thoughts of Papyrus and home to let himself get particularly analytical about it.

As they neared town, Sans pulled up his hood, just in case any other humans spotted them. He could pass for human pretty easily at a distance, and to take advantage of that, the two decided to take a path that circled around the town instead of trying to go through it.

This route seemed to work well for them for a while, and Karak's rambling changed back into questions for Sans about what kinds of magic the monsters in his world had. Sans tried to answer honestly, but he didn't really feel much like talking.

"Oi!" The two came to a halt at the sound of someone calling out to them. Looking in the direction of the call, Sans could see a brown-haired human woman in a plain, ankle-length dress standing in a corn field fairly close to the road, waving a handkerchief at them. "Are you boys adventurers?"

Without hesitation, Karak turned and started jogging towards the woman. "We sure are! What's up? What can we help you with?"

Sans stayed on the road for a moment, staring after his new friend in amusement. So much for avoiding other humans along the way. Sans shrugged, chuckling to himself. He didn't particularly care if anyone found out he was a skeleton, so if Karak didn't worry about it, he sure wasn't about to.

"It's my barnyard," the woman said sadly as Karak approached, Sans trailing along slowly behind him. The woman gestured behind her across the field towards a large wooden building. "It's been totally invaded by spiders. I can't get anywhere near the place, and I haven't seen my poor cows for three days!"

"oh boy," Sans shoved his hands in his pockets with a grin, glancing away toward the building. "that's bad news. don't wanna mess with spiders."

"I know, right?" The woman didn't seem to be paying enough attention to think there was anything odd with Sans, and she put her hands on her hips. "They're horrible little things! Do you think you could do anything about it?"

Karak looked pumped. "Sure, no problem. We can take care of it. Right, Sans?"

"how big we talking?" That tended to be an important detail with spiders. Monsters like Muffet were hard to bargain with, but the little ones were strange creatures that sometimes did weird things like eat each other. They never spoke, but you could pretty much get them to do anything.

The woman held her hands up in front of her, indicating a length of a foot and a half or so. "About yea big. Y'know, the normal size for spiders."

Right. So somewhere in between the ones he knew how to deal with. Of course. He didn't know what else he was expecting.

Karak was already headed off towards the barn, and Sans followed amiably, though at a much more reasonable pace.

Once they were out of the woman's earshot, and Karak had realized he'd left Sans in the dust and waited for the skeleton to catch up, Sans grinned at him. "so. you go completely out of your way to help random people often, then?"

"Whenever I can," Karak confirmed. "Side quests give EXP. This one should be easy enough. Spiders are pretty low level."

"which makes them easy kills, i suppose?" Sans glanced sidelong at Karak.

Karak blinked, then gave an exasperated sigh, continuing to walk without looking at the skeleton. "Come on, Sans, are you going to get mad at me for stepping on flowers, too?" Before Sans could comment on a certain flower monster he knew, Karak went on, "They're pests. They invade places like this all the time and destroy things and their webs get everywhere. What else am I supposed to do, ask them nicely to leave and hope they'll decide not to try to bite my head off? I don't think they understand language."

Sans shook his head. "i'm not mad at you. and i'm not naïve, either. i know that not all problems can be solved without violence. but i'd never be able to live with myself if i didn't at least try mercy first whenever i could. you know?"

The boy thought about that for a long moment, until they finally reached the giant main doors of the barn, which had been left slightly ajar. He paused, staring into the darkness, where they could already see spider webs crisscrossing back and forth. "So what do you have in mind? Try relocating them? I mean, they've got legs, they'll just walk back." Karak's tone was no longer sarcastic, and he seemed to honestly be considering Sans' words. Really, he was a pretty good kid, all things considered.

"depends on what they want here," Sans said with a shrug. "probably not shelter, it's too warm for that. if they're just after the cows, we give em a better food source elsewhere. maybe i should go in first, see if they're less likely to attack me."

Karak shook his head. "No, better to go in together." His hand hovered hesitantly on his sword hilt for a second, but eventually, he let out a sigh, looking determined, and simply reached up to push the door further open, stepping inside. Sans stayed right behind him, keeping alert as he watched for spiders.

Despite the daylight shining in from upper floor windows and the open front door, the webs everywhere made it hard to see much in the shadows of the barn's stalls, especially toward the back of the room. Several dark shapes skittered to the corners as they entered.

"Hello?" Karak called out.

There was no reply, but they hadn't actually expected one. The rustling noises ceased, though, and the barn became eerily quiet. Sans glanced around, trying to estimate how many there were, but he couldn't really tell. "you have a way to light this place up better so we can see?" he asked softly. It wasn't that dark, really, but any extra light would help.

Karak shrugged, wandering nervously further inside. "I've got some fire spells, but I wouldn't want to accidentally set the whole barn on fire. Maybe there's something I could use to make a torch."

While he searched, Sans stepped into one of the stalls. In the corner, he spotted something small hiding behind a pile of hay, shaking. As he approached, it dashed up the wall to the top of the stall, and Sans finally got a good look at it. Dark black, thin and wiry, the spider glanced back at him with an unreadable look in its many eyes, then dropped down into the stall next to him, out of his sight.

Sans contemplated this. "well, they don't seem to be too aggressive," he commented aloud. They almost didn't act like monsters, he pondered to himself. They seemed more like the animals he'd encountered on the surface with Frisk. That didn't mean they weren't dangerous, but-

"Uhh, Sans?" The skeleton turned to see what Karak wanted, and froze as he realized that his way out of the stall was blocked off by a half dozen, one-foot-tall spiders, some descending slowly from the ceiling on strands of web and others coming steadily towards him on the floor and the walls of the stall. Beyond them, he could see Karak becoming equally surrounded.

One of the spiders lunged at Sans, and he threw his left arm above his head, activating his blue magic and twisting gravity upwards. The spiders in the air, including the ones on webs, plummeted to the ceiling, chittering angrily. The others on the walls and floor stumbled, thrown off by the change, but continued to press towards him, otherwise unaffected. They didn't care if the floor was now the ceiling, Sans realized, since they could climb on ceilings anyway.

Karak cried out in surprise, and Sans hastily slowed the boy's upward 'descent,' leaving him flailing in midair. He hadn't meant to hit Karak with his attack, but for now it kept the boy away from the spiders, so that worked out. For that matter, he might want to get himself up there, too. He jumped and pinged his own soul blue, falling out of the stall and away from the attackers.

Working quickly, Sans released his magic on the spiders he'd left behind on the floor, so they couldn't just purposely fall to attack him, and strengthened his hold on the ones on the ceiling for the same reason. Karak's mouth hung open, his arms and legs pin-wheeling slightly as he tried to figure out how to maneuver like this. "H-how...?"

Sans grinned. "ok, i take it back. they're definitely aggressive. oh, look, there's the cows." They hung along the back wall of the barn, five of them, cocooned in webs so tightly that he wouldn't have been able to tell what they were if the spiders hadn't left their heads mostly uncovered. One of the cows let out a bored moo.

"This _is_ you doing this, isn't it?" Karak asked anxiously, turning to look at Sans as he held his arms out wide to either side, as though to keep his balance. "Cause if so, awesome, bu-Whoa! Look out!"

The spiders, those on the floor and on the ceiling, had started to climb the walls, and one near their level managed to launch itself directly at them. Sans caught it in his magic and sent it heavily to the ground. Two more tried their luck and met similar fates.

Still, they kept coming, jumping both at him and at Karak beside him, and it was all he could do to keep them back. Just how many of these spiders were there in here? It didn't help that once on the ground, they just went right back to climbing the walls.

"Hey, Sans..." The skeleton glanced over at Karak and raised an eyebrow when he saw that the boy had somehow managed to slowly spin himself upside down and was giving him a contemplative look and a smirk. "I just had the most ridiculous idea..."

Sans laughed, slamming a few more spiders out of the air. "yeah? let me hear it. can't get much more ridiculous than what we're already doing."

"Put us back on the ground," Karak suggested, gesturing 'up' towards it. He paused. "Uh, right side up, preferably. But then, can't you just throw the spiders up here? Then they won't be able to move, right? I mean, I can't seem to."

"not gunna work like that, kid," Sans replied, but all the same, he gestured at Karak to flip him around the right direction again, then started lowering them to the floor. It took less magic for him to hold other things with his blue magic than it took to hold himself, so he was perfectly willing to land again, even if it meant the spiders could attack them more easily. "these guys are pretty good at sticking themselves to things. i can only affect them while they're in the air."

Karak drew his sword. "Then I'll get them in the air." For a moment, Sans was alarmed, but the boy simply reached out and slid the blade underneath a surprised spider, deftly flipping it up off its feet. As soon as it lost contact with the ground, Sans pinged it blue and threw it halfway to the ceiling. By then, Karak already had another spider in the air, and Sans sent that one up, too.

"huh. not bad." Sans made sure Karak's feet were firmly planted on the floor before letting go of them both, then kept his eye out for spiders dropping from the ceiling, immediately pinging them and adding them to his "collection" in the center of the barn.

The spiders continued their assault, but now the two adventurers had a strategy. As the attacking forces grew smaller and smaller, the strange-looking swarm of hovering spiders became larger.

As it did, Sans's task grew increasingly more difficult. What he really needed was a gravity well of sorts, to keep them all together in the same spot. His magic didn't work that way, though; he had to individually change the gravity of each entity in this ball of spiders. So long as they didn't move around, that was fine, but all of them were trying desperately to escape his hold, shoving against each other to attempt to reach the walls, and each time, he had to adjust to shove them back toward the center.

Eventually, he managed to get them into a sort of pattern in the air, just far enough away from each other to prevent squirming, but not so far away that they were hitting the walls. After that, it was just a matter of rearranging them as Karak continued tossing spiders up for him.

"well," he huffed to Karak at one point, "now i know what a circus juggler feels like." He knew he was sweating pretty hard from the exertion.

In the end, there were only about two dozen spiders, at least that they could find without hacking through all of the webs in every corner. Karak opened the front door wider for Sans, who pulled his hood back up over his head and began maneuvering his spider ball outside. This proved more difficult than he'd initially thought, and by the time he got them out there, Karak had finished freeing the cows from their cocoons.

Sans could only imagine what this looked like to the woman still tending the field. A writhing cloud of black creatures emerging from the barn, followed by five terrified cows. He snickered, deliberately not paying attention to the fact that his hands were beginning to shake from holding this thing up so long. "great. so. now what?"

"Uhh, good question?" Karak shrugged, raising an eyebrow up at their handiwork. "I was right about one thing, though. That is ridiculous."

A spider chittered at the boy, and Sans laughed again. "you tell him, spider." It happened to be one that he had floating near him, so he reached out and patted its head affectionately. It tried to bite him, of course, but he was too quick to let it get away with that.

"There's a river fairly close by," Karak mentioned. "If we drop them in there, they'll float downstream away from here."

Sans eyed the ball of spiders. "that might not be very nice. i don't know if they can swim. hey, spiders, do you swim?" No response, of course, but just to be sure, he repeated the question in French. Then German. English with Wingdings, interestingly enough, made them all hiss threateningly at him, and he burst out laughing. "huh. even here, nobody trusts the man who speaks in hands."

"What languages were those?" Karak asked curiously. "I thought I recognized the sounds of some of that, but that last one was...?"

"never mind," Sans said wearily with a shake of his head. "in all seriousness, i gotta put this 'monstrosity' down pretty soon. it's heavy. we can try putting them on the other side of the river. if they can't swim, they won't be able to get back."

Karak pointed the way. "It's not too far from here. Just across the field, on the other side of those trees, I think."

Sans looked, judging the distance. Too far to walk, he decided. He'd never make it all the way with all these spiders in tow. "right," he mumbled. "well, thankfully, i know a shortcut."

He strode forward a short ways, stepping up to the river's banks and taking the spider ball along with him. Black spots began to dance in his vision, so he hurriedly twisted each spider's gravity to send them flying across the water. He didn't see whether or not they all made it, though, because a second later, his face met dirt.

"Sans!" He wasn't out for very long, as far as he could tell, before Karak knelt beside him, shaking his shoulder lightly and calling to him. "Sans, are you alright?" When Sans didn't answer, the boy started trying to roll him over onto his back.

Sans resisted the effort, groaning slightly. "'m fine," he insisted, keeping his head down as he feebly lifted one hand to wave him off. "it's super comfortable right here, you should try it."

Karak let out a sigh, both of relief and annoyance. "Sans, you should have told me you were low on MP! I have plenty of these, you know!" Sans didn't have to look up to know that the glass bottle being tapped against the side of his skull was another gross green potion.

"nooooo," he moaned, burying his face deeper into the soft, wet dirt. "just let me sleep..."

Now Karak's sigh was just one of annoyance. "I'm not going to bother asking how you can still talk with your whole face buried in mud... Come on, Sans, we need to get going. That lady will get worried about us."

"go on without me," Sans intoned melodramatically. "i'm going back to being the really lazy guy who doesn't do anything. it's much easier..."

Sans was half expecting it when Karak shoved him over onto his back, but he wasn't prepared for the boy to immediately pour the potion down his throat. Sans gagged, sitting up abruptly as he tried to keep from choking on the disgusting liquid. "why would you do that?!" he protested when he could breathe again.

Karak just smirked at him. "Feel better?"

He did, but he wasn't going to say as much. It was strange and unnatural to be so suddenly and completely awake after being that tired, and it almost made him want to lay back down in the mud and take a nap purely out of spite. It took him a moment to talk himself out of that urge, and in the end he only managed it because he knew he wouldn't actually be able to fall asleep now if he tried. "that stuff is terrible," he informed Karak. "you have deprived me of an excellent napping opportunity."

Shaking his head, Karak hauled Sans to his feet, almost knocking a slipper off. "You have mud all over your face."

Sans grinned, making a minimal effort to brush off his damp jacket. "inside my face, too. mostly in my nose. i guess now i have a dirty mind." He winked.

"You have no idea how weird that is," Karak chuckled, and he pointed down at the strange 'reversed' imprint Sans' skull had left in the river bank. "Seriously. Anyway, let's go collect our quest reward."

"oh. the spiders all got across?" Sans turned to look, a bit surprised to see that a lot of the spiders had wandered off already, heading mostly downriver. A few stood on the bank of the far side, chittering madly as they waded in the shallows. Any deeper than that, and they simply floated away. "huh. i actually didn't expect that to be quite so effective."

Karak grinned. "Yeah, it seems to have worked. Come on."

It didn't take too long to walk back through the trees to the field, and the two could soon see the woman standing with her cows in front of the barn, waiting for them. She looked up, smiled, and hurried forward to meet them. "Thank you!" she called as she approached. "My cows are all safe, and it's all thanks to you two!"

"It's no problem," Karak said modestly, and he casually leaned an arm on Sans' hooded head. "Sans here did most of the work."

"Thank you," she said again, looking between the two of them. Sans got the impression that she wanted to hug them both and was just barely restraining herself. "I can't even begin to say just how grateful I am. H-here. I don't have much, but please take this with my thanks."

Shyly, she dug out a small pouch and held it out to Karak. The boy accepted it with a smile, and as he did, Sans felt the unnerving sensation of his EXP increasing, though thankfully not quite enough to up his LV. He wasn't sure how he'd explain that to Papyrus if it had.

"You're very welcome," Karak told the young woman.

She hesitated a moment longer, then quickly stepped up to the boy, stood on tiptoe to reach him, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Karak blushed and began to babble something, and while he was distracted, she turned to Sans and leaned down, pulling back his hood and kissing his forehead.

Sans laughed, and the woman froze, staring down at him with wide eyes as she finally registered the fact that underneath the mud on his face, he was distinctly not human. "Wait... you... you're..."

"not what you expected?" Sans winked at her, his grin becoming larger. "bone-chilling, isn't it? don't get too rattled, though, i'm not that scary." He let his eyelights go out.

" **unless i want to be.** "

Karak smacked him lightly on the back of his head. "Sans, stop that."

"ow," Sans intoned, still grinning.

The woman had backed up a good meter away by now, her eyes never leaving Sans' face. "You... ah... Um, sorry! I, uh, don't mean to be rude, but I have to go now!"

"Wait!" Karak reached out towards her, but she was already running, hands clenched tightly in her skirts to free up her feet as she hurried away. Karak sighed. "You scared her off."

Sans was laughing so hard he doubled over. "i can just imagine what's going on in her head right now," he wheezed. "'did i just kiss a skeleton?' ha ha..."

Karak shook his head helplessly. "You know, when all this is done, nobody is going to believe me when I say I met a skeleton who was actually nice. Not because of the sheer impossibility of that statement, but because you keep purposely scaring the crap out of everyone you meet!"

"hey, now," Sans snickered. "that's not fair. i've only met two humans here so far."

"And you've done that to both of us!" Karak turned away, a chuckle escaping despite himself, and he reached out and dropped something on Sans' head. "Here."

Automatically, Sans caught it, looking it over. It was the pouch that the woman had given them, and inside were several coins of various shapes and colors. "oh. i don't need this." Sans tried to hand it back, but Karak had headed off towards the road again. He hurried to catch up. "seriously, karak. we use different currency back home, and nobody here is going to want to sell anything to a skeleton."

Karak shrugged. "But you earned it. I couldn't have done that without you, not peacefully anyway. I didn't even think there was a way to do that peacefully."

"you're the one who came up with the idea," Sans pointed out.

But Karak still refused to take the pouch from him, insisting that Sans deserved the reward, even if it served only as a memento. Eventually, Sans gave up, tucking the pouch into his jacket pocket alongside the makeshift blueprints.


	4. The Tower

As they walked down the road, Karak's endless questions started up again, now curious about how many different 'spells' Sans was able to do. Sans kept his replies on that subject vague, as he didn't particularly like talking about himself, and instead talked up how awesome Papyrus' abilities were in comparison.

Sans found that, for once, he felt like he could talk about Papyrus without breaking down, so this led to reminiscing about his brother's puzzles, and describing just how hard Papyrus had tried to get into the royal guard. All that gave Karak plenty of material for new questions that lasted all the way up until they crested a hill and spotted the tower.

The stone building lay in the middle of a low, overgrown valley, less than a kilometer away, just barely concealed from the average traveler by tall underbrush and the geography around it.

"There it is," Karak pointed it out to him. "There are a few guards outside at the entrance, but the first floor is almost completely clear. It's the next level up that I couldn't get past."

Sans studied the tower contemplatively as they continued down into the valley, pushing their way through huge ferns and other groundcover. It was at most five or six stories high, much smaller than he'd been expecting, but he supposed it made sense considering this world seemed to have slightly less than medieval-level technology. Constructing tall buildings required enough engineering know-how to keep the wind from knocking them over. And besides that, whoever had built it had obviously wanted to stay at least somewhat hidden.

"who does this tower belong to, anyway?" he asked curiously as they neared it.

"I don't really know," Karak admitted. "The only living things I've run across inside have been monsters, and they aren't exactly talkative. Present company excepted, of course."

With a grin, Sans gave an exaggerated shrug. "yep. i may be short, but that doesn't stop me from being the tall-king."

Judging from Karak's blank expression, his pun had gone over the boy's head. He chuckled. "heh. alright, i guess that one was a bit of a stretch." Shrugging, he went on. "anyway, if you've gotten in before, the guards will probably be expecting intruders. any plans for getting around them?"

Interestingly enough, Karak hesitated for a moment before answering. "I wouldn't say they're expecting us," he said slowly. "They're, uh... definitely not sentient. Like, even less so than the skeletons."

"really?" Sans blinked, raising an eyebrow curiously. "what kind of monsters are they?"

"Zombies." Karak shuddered slightly. "I really don't like them."

"huh. never heard of them. what are..." Sans trailed off as he spotted a guard coming around the side of the tower. Karak saw it at the same time and quickly pulled the skeleton into a nearby bush to hide.

Sans peeked his head out to get a better look. His first thought upon seeing the monster had been 'human,' but this guy very much was not. Not with that gray-purple shade of skin, and definitely not with the rotten patches all over, exposing muscle, intestines, and bone. The whole side of its face looked half smashed in, the flesh sheared away to reveal a crushed skull. Sans watched in morbid fascination as it dragged itself towards the tower's main doors, a low moan echoing across the short distance between them.

Karak scowled. "They used to be human. Zombies are one of the few monsters that don't just occur naturally in the world. They're made by necromancers, people who take human corpses and use magic to give them 'life' again. Which pretty much tells you what kind of person owns this tower."

Sans couldn't help the look of disgust that spread across his face. The gore didn't bother him much (though it did remind him of past nightmares in a long, golden hallway) but from what Karak was saying, these things were the human equivalent of someone taking monster dust and making puppets out of it. "that's... just sick."

"Some people think that skeletons fall in the same category as zombies, you know," Karak mentioned, giving Sans a side-long look. "Because of, ah..." he couldn't quite seem to say it, so he merely held up an arm, poking vaguely at the bones beneath his skin with the other hand.

 _way to make this awkward_ , Sans couldn't help thinking. "i know humans have skeletons," he assured the boy in a dry voice. "most monsters do, too. trust me, the actual bone structure is much different." He jerked a thumb up at his jawline, the most obvious example of this, then winked to further prove the point.

Karak nodded slowly. "Yeah, I figured you weren't just undead. Skeletons and zombies do seem a lot alike, though. I only knew skeletons were different because I've found them all over the place, and there's no way someone made them all just to let them roam the countryside for no reason."

This conversation was getting uncomfortable, so Sans returned his attention to the tower. "so what's the best way to get past them?" he asked, gesturing towards the door where another zombie had shambled up to join the first.

"Besides putting them out of their misery?" Karak looked up, as though the sky held all the answers. "Not sure. We could try distracting them, I guess."

Sans followed his gaze, then tilted his head with a smirk as he spotted something. "have you tried the window?"

Karak blinked at him in confusion, then glanced back up to see the large glass window at the very top of the tower. He shook his head with a snort. "Yes, because I'm totally able to climb up a smooth stone wall all the way to the top of a huge tower. Of course I'd think to try that."

"hey, sarcasm isn't funny," Sans said with a chuckle. "besides, you wouldn't need to climb." He pulled a hand out of his pocket, letting it glow blue to show his intent.

Eyebrows raised, Karak frowned incredulously. "Really? You serious? All the way up there?" Sans just widened his grin, and Karak sighed. Gritting his teeth, he paused for a moment to steel himself, then crawled out of the bush and stepped back so that there wasn't any foliage above him. "Fine. Just don't drop me."

"aw, come on," Sans gave his best innocent look and pinged Karak's soul blue, adjusting his gravity so that he began to fall slowly upwards. "don't you trust me?"

For a moment, Karak didn't answer, simply shifting his body to adjust to floating, but when he did, it was with a bright smile. "Heh. Yeah, actually. I do trust you, Sans."

"oh. sorry to hear that." Casually, he turned away, letting his magic fade out. Karak hovered in one spot—a good two stories in the air by that point—for a long, uncertain moment before suddenly plummeting back towards the ground again.

"AAAUGH!"

He needn't have screamed so loud; Sans flung his arm out and caught him in his magic a split second before he hit the grass. The skeleton burst out laughing at Karak's wide eyes and terrified gasping. "gotcha," he said cheerily.

"Sans!" Karak flailed in the grasp of Sans' magic, his whole face red. "You're a monster! A real monster! How could you?!" Despite all the yelling, the boy was giggling right along with him.

"hey," Sans interjected with a huge grin. "it's not my fault you keep falling for my pranks. you're only human, after all."

"pffft!" Karak let himself go limp, shaking with laughter. "Alright, alright, you got me. You got me good."

Sans was about to reply, but a commotion from his left cut him off as two zombie guards pushed their way through the bushes in their direction. "whoops," he said offhandedly. "kinda forgot about these guys." Karak let out a low squeak as Sans sent him flying back up into the air again to get him out of sight.

To his surprise, the zombies stopped in their tracks when they spotted the skeleton, their broken faces contorting into looks of mild confusion. One of them, the first zombie he'd seen, pointed at him. "Nnnnn-tru-drrr?" it questioned.

Sans blinked. That was the first time he'd heard a monster here speak, or at least try to speak. Had they recognized that he wasn't a human? "intruder? me? nah, i'm jus-"

"TRUDER!" the other zombie screeched suddenly, and launched itself at him. Sans ducked out of the way, letting it careen past him into another clump of bushes, where it managed to get entangled in branches and leaves.

The first one took that as an answer and also moved to attack, letting out a loud growl and opening its mouth wide to bite at him.

Sans took a shortcut, activating blue magic on himself at the same time, and a moment later, he hung in the air beside Karak, hands shoved in his pockets. "i thought you said they weren't sentient," he commented quietly.

There was no deception on the boy's face, only a deep confusion. "I... I mean, I didn't think they were. They're puppets, they're just following whatever directions the necromancer gave them. I've never heard them yell like that."

"maybe they've retained some of their former intelligence?" Sans guessed. "what about their souls? do they still have their human souls?"

Karak only blinked at him in response. "I have no idea. Does it matter?"

Sans shrugged, realizing he'd lapsed into scientific analysis mode. "just musing out loud," he brushed it off. "monsters here are... different. i'm still trying to figure them out."

"We should check out the window before they figure out where we went," Karak pointed out.

Lazily, Sans glanced down at the zombies still crashing about in the underbrush below. "nah. no one ever looks up." But he pulled a hand out of his pocket and began lifting Karak and himself higher. Originally, he was just going to send Karak up, but now that he was already in the air, might as well check things out himself, too.

It proved to be a fruitless endeavor, as something invisible shoved both of them several meters away from the building the moment they were in reach of the window. Sans struggled against whatever force was keeping them back, but his magic didn't seem to be strong enough to push past the spell. He could move them up and down, but not any closer to the glass.

"Looks like some sort of study," Karak mentioned, straining to see inside from their new distant position. "Or maybe a workroom. I don't see anyone in there, though."

Sans narrowed his eyes as he analyzed the magic bubble of repelling that had been erected around the window. The humans in his world definitely didn't have anything like this at their disposal; not anymore, at any rate. "welp. guess this guy already took the ability to fly into account. too bad."

"Yeah, I suppose we'll have to use the front door, like normal people," Karak commented with a smirk. "How terrible."

Letting Karak's sarcasm slide for now, Sans scanned the ground below them, trying to decide how many guards there were. Five seemed to have clumped up together searching the bushes, due to the earlier confrontation, but who knew if more still patrolled the other side of the building.

"they seem pretty distracted at the moment," he pointed out. "think we can just drop down in front of the door and walk in?"

Karak shrugged. "Maybe. If they spot us, then we'll have to hope they don't know how to open doors. But it sounds like a good shot to me."

"a'ight." Sans deftly swung them around the side of the building to the front, double checked for wandering guards, then let gravity take its natural course, setting them down gently on the grass in front of the large entrance.

As soon as his feet had purchase on the ground again, Karak turned and pressed one shoulder against the door, using his full body weight to shove it open. It did so slowly. "When we get in," Karak huffed, "be prepared to start dodging."

Sans nodded, and when the door was open enough, he slipped inside. Karak was right behind him, and the door swung shut the moment the boy stopped pushing.

It took several moments to adjust to the darker room. Torches rested in sconces on the stone walls, but it was a far cry from the bright daylight outside. To Sans' surprise, the place seemed to be pretty empty, with only a few low tables in the corners, covered with bowls and plates and surrounded by simple wooden chairs. No decorations hung on the walls other than the lights; no rugs or other carpeting hid the plain, white tiled floor; and there wasn't a single person in sight.

At least, at first. Just as Sans opened his mouth to ask Karak what he'd expected to see in here, a pale figure faded slowly into existence in the center of the room: A ghost monster, hovering a foot off the ground, glaring at them with large blue eyes. It had no limbs manifested, giving it a very similar look to Undyne's neighbor, though it 'stood' much taller than Napstablook.

Sans barely had time to take in its appearance before it let out a screech, and detached spectral hands appeared and lifted three plates off the tables into the air. The objects spun slowly for two long seconds before being suddenly hurled in their direction. Sans jumped to the side, letting the pottery sail past him and smash into shards on the wall behind him. Karak did the same, though the boy also drew his sword, swinging and shattering the third plate before it could reach him.

The ghost was undeterred by its misses, and with another yell, it picked up more dishes to throw at them, never actually moving from the middle of the room as its many ghostly hands did their work.

Sans, thankfully enough, was the absolute master of dodging, in his own humble opinion. Karak didn't do too bad, either, and whatever the boy didn't dodge, his sword took out easily enough.

Running out of pottery to throw didn't stop the ghost either. Its eyes flashed in annoyance, and its hands all worked together to haul a table into the air, lobbing that at them instead with a mighty roar. Sans outright laughed at this, ducking away to a corner of the room, and the table hit the wall with a resounding crash, splintering into pieces. The chair that followed met a similar fate, as did the next one, and the next.

The ghost became increasingly frustrated, as the pile of debris against the far wall grew and the 'ammo' supply steadily shrunk. Soon, there were no more chairs either, and with angry cries, the ghost smashed the last few tables against the wall as well, not even bothering to properly aim them this time.

Sans gave the ghost a patient smile. "you seem to be out of stuff to throw," he commented lightly.

"Not quite," Karak murmured under his breath, still crouched and ready to dodge.

The skeleton blinked at him in confusion, but it soon became clear what Karak meant as the ghost began cackling with evil laughter, its eyes glowing an ominous red. Loud snaps and cracks rang out, and Sans watched in fascination as the floor tiles themselves rose one by one into the air. "well. i stand corrected."

The entire room abruptly became a flurry of movement, tiles filling all available space like some sort of bullet hell video game.

Sans ruled at bullet hell games.

The ghost's final barrage chipped the stone walls, smashed the debris from before back up into the air, and sent pottery dust and splinters flying in dangerous, shard-filled clouds that further obscured the room. Thankfully, it didn't last long, and at the end of it, the skeleton stood unscathed, though drops of sweat slid down his face as he fought to catch his breath, leaning against the wall and keeping a wary eye on the ghost. Karak had managed to make it to the other side of the room somehow, looking a little battered but otherwise no worse for wear.

As the cloud of debris slowly settled, the red glow drained from the ghost's eyes, leaving them a dull blue color again, and it stared at them with a strangely neutral expression. A ringing silence permeated the atmosphere as they tensely watched each other, before the ghost simply faded out of existence, seeming almost sad.

After a moment, Karak let out a relieved laugh. "Well, that was crazy," he said breathlessly, sheathing his sword. "You okay over there?"

"oh, yeah. peachy." Sans gave him a thumbs up without moving from the wall. "i thought you said that the next level is when it gets hard."

The boy shrugged and went to Sans' side, helping to steady him. "Yeah. The next floor has a mini-boss," he explained, pointing to the far end of the square room where a staircase was inset into the wall.

The new term pulled Sans' attention from his exhaustion for a moment. "mini-boss?" he questioned as the bizarre mental image of a doll-sized Asgore popped into his head. "like a tiny boss monster?"

Karak snorted. "This guy's anything but tiny," he responded. "I call them mini-bosses because they're not, you know, the main boss of the place, but they're much stronger than the other monsters. Like I said, I can't get past this guy, mostly because of the time limit."

Sans raised an eyebrow at that. "what, like it kicks you out of the room after a few minutes?"

"No, it..." Karak hesitated, his mouth twisting uncomfortably. "Er... Something like that, yeah."

Sans would have been able to tell that the boy wasn't telling him something even if he didn't have special training as a judge. Something else about this whole situation with the ghost throwing stuff seemed off to him, too, though he couldn't quite put his finger bone on exactly what was bothering him. He shoved his hands in his pockets without a word and just looked at Karak. Calmly.

The boy squirmed under his gaze, one foot scuffing at the now dirt floor. "It's hard to explain," he said lamely. "Easier if you just see for yourself. How's your HP and MP? You ready for this?"

After watching him for just a moment longer, Sans decided to let it go for now. "i'm good on magic, but i could use a bit of a breather. i'm, uh, definitely not cut out for this kind of stuff."

"Not cut out for...? Sans, you didn't get hit once that whole time, what do you mean you're not cut out for it?" Karak cracked a smile, sitting down amongst the debris. Sans plopped down next to him, sprawling on his back with his hands up behind his head like a pillow. Karak shook his head. "Seriously, that was pretty cool. I didn't think you could move that fast."

Sans only shrugged, now focusing on slowing his breathing. He wasn't about to admit that with his HP, he literally couldn't let himself get hit, not even once. "i'm fast, but i can't keep it up long. you should see my bro, his stamina is seriously something else. me, i prefer doing absolutely nothing if it's at all possible. all this running around is crazy."

"Hey, if you need a boost, I've still got plenty of-"

"nah," Sans interrupted before Karak could even start rummaging through his bag for another of those disgusting potions. "i'm good, thanks."

Karak chuckled, the mischievous gleam in his eye stating clearly that he'd already known how Sans would react to that. Not that it was too hard of a thing to guess. The boy poked through the pouch on his belt anyway, pulling out a vial of some new kind of potion, this one red, and downing it himself. By his expression, Sans guessed it was as vile as the other kind, but Karak looked much better afterwards.

"so what's our strategy for this 'mini-boss' upstairs?" Sans asked after a minute, slowly sitting up again and stretching to pop his back.

Frowning, Karak gazed at the staircase in thought. "I'm not sure, to be honest. The doors all close as soon as you walk in, and it seems like the only way past is to kill the boss before..."

"before it kicks you out," Sans finished. He let out a low hum, rubbing his chin. "maybe i can try shortcutting past the door to the next room. as long as i have a general idea of what's on the other side, i can probably manage it."

Karak blinked, then grinned. "I keep forgetting you can do stuff like that. This feels totally like cheating."

Sans winked. "yeah. it totally is. so?"

The boy just laughed as they both pulled themselves to their feet. Karak turned to face the staircase, looking a bit nervous. "Ready?"

"ready as i'll ever be," Sans replied, and they headed up, Karak leading the way.


	5. Mini Boss

Upstairs was another single large room, lit by a line of glowing crystals several feet above eye level along the walls. This room had absolutely no furniture, and like the last room, seemed devoid of life when they first entered. The moment Sans' feet crossed the threshold, however, two giant slabs of stone slid into place on either side of the room, blocking their way both backward and forward to the next staircase.

One wall abruptly caved in, as though it had been turned to sand, revealing a very large monster sitting on the floor facing away from them. A very large, particularly ugly monster.

As they watched, it slowly pulled itself up onto its two feet, unfurling four mismatched arms and opening one giant eye that lay in the center of its round body, almost like an astigmatism. Very unlike an astigmatism, however, this monster was covered in thick cord-like stitches woven through its skin, holding pieces of it together. Every limb was a different color and texture; bare skin in various shades, scales, hair, some sections even dripped slime. Standing at its full height, the monster's head nearly brushed the ceiling three meters above them.

"It's a flesh golem," Karak said softly, trying not to draw its attention yet. "Hurry, let's get to the door."

It heard the boy despite his efforts, looking towards the two adventurers and letting out a loud, lion-like roar, though it didn't seem to actually have a mouth for the sound to come from. Shaking off the resulting reverberations, Sans focused on the stairwell he'd gotten a brief glimpse of a moment ago.

There was no shortcut to get there.

The monster lowered its head, scuffed one foot backwards against the floor, and then charged at them.

With a grimace, Sans pulled Karak with him through a small gap in space to the other side of the room, right up against the slab of stone that served as a 'door.' He could get them there easily enough... but not to the other side of it.

Behind him, he heard Karak draw his sword, and Sans pulled both hands out of his pockets, pressing his bony palms against the stone as he sent a wave of magic through it, searching.

Nothing. It was as though the staircase—or anywhere that wasn't in this room, for that matter—didn't exist anymore. He couldn't even get them back outside the tower.

"uh, we might have a problem," he mentioned casually.

Karak abruptly grabbed the hood of Sans's jacket, yanking him to one side just in time for the flesh golem to barely miss its attack. Instead, it crashed full force into the door, causing the whole room to shudder.

"I kinda noticed," Karak gasped, pulling Sans further away from the monster as it thrashed its many arms in their direction. "You can't get through?"

Sans found his feet again and readied himself for more dodging, hands burrowing back into his pockets. "nope. guess we're stuck playing with 'patches' here. why is it flashing?"

As the creature meticulously turned itself around to face them again, something that it seemed to be having trouble with considering how top-heavy it looked, a red-purple light pulsed from somewhere deep inside its body at a slow but steady rate.

Karak grimaced at Sans' question. "That's the time limit."

Before he could go on, the flesh golem let out another bone-rattling roar and charged once more at them. The two adventurers dove out of the way, and Karak managed to land a critical hit with his sword as the creature passed by, leaving a long gouge down one of its arms.

The damage didn't seem to bother it much, though a few of the stitches holding the arm together had been severed by the blow. There was no blood, or even dust. Pushing itself off the wall it had crashed into, it again began the arduous task of relocating them and turning itself.

"The light flashes faster and faster," Karak continued as though he hadn't been interrupted, "until it's just a steady light. At that point, we'll have only a few seconds before the bomb goes off."

Sans started to nod at this, but then did a double take, giving his companion an incredulous stare. "wait, a bomb?"

Karak winced, but didn't drop his battle stance. "Yes, a bomb. Here it comes again, watch out."

Suddenly much more interested in getting answers than dodging, Sans took two quick shortcuts, grabbing Karak and moving both of them to the opposite side of the room. A split second later, everything shook again from the force of the monster's charge.

Without pausing, Sans jerked Karak around to face him, his eyelights dark. "what bomb? where is it? how do we get rid of it?"

The boy swayed a little, slightly disoriented by the shortcut, but quickly regained his balance and his focus. "It's inside the monster. Like I said before, as far as I can tell, the only way to get past is to kill it before it explodes. There might be another way to defuse the bomb, but I have no idea what it'd be."

A maelstrom of questions swirled through Sans's mind, but before he could voice any of them, the monster spotted them again, roaring in apparent frustration at finding them inexplicably so far away. The pulsing light within it had definitely sped up just in the half minute since its last attack, which Sans found worrying.

The flesh golem charged, running at top speed as its many hands clenched into fists. Sans narrowed his eyes at it; so far, he'd avoided actually attacking it in any way, but if it was going to explode at any moment, he needed it to stay as far away from them as possible.

Releasing Karak's sleeve, he pushed his hand in the monster's direction, pinging its soul blue and sending it falling back to the opposite wall. Waiting for it to hit, Sans readied a bone attack to send through—

Sans was jarred suddenly out of his thoughts as he caught sight of the blue soul in his grasp. "what the hell?" he yelped, nearly letting go of it in surprise.

Monsters tended to come in just about every shape and size imaginable, so the flesh golem's appearance hadn't bothered Sans at all, though he'd never seen its like before. Monster SOULs, on the other hand, should always look the same as every other monster soul. This one did not; instead, it was just as much of a patchwork quilt as the monster's outside.

It wasn't a single soul, Sans realized, feeling slightly sick. This was many monsters, horribly mutilated, torn apart and crudely stitched together to vaguely imitate the white heart shape of a single monster.

Karak couldn't see the creature's soul—Sans only could due to his magic wrapped around it—and the boy glanced at him in confusion. "What? What happened?"

Sans couldn't keep his hands from shaking with horror and rage as he stared at the poor creature(s) he had effectively pinned to the other side of the room. It thrashed against his hold, jumping as far towards them as it could with its altered gravity sending it back 'down' to the wall. All four hands smashed the stone all around it as it screamed.

Even the Determination experiments hadn't resulted in such tortured beings. The many souls of the Amalgamates, while stuck together, remained whole within their melted bodies, mostly untouched by the DT as far as anyone could tell. This monster, this abomination, had probably never been without pain arcing throughout its entire being.

"Sans?" Karak asked tentatively.

The sound snapped Sans back into reality, and he dropped the mutilated soul in disgust, letting the golem fall, flailing wildly, back to the floor. "whoever made this thing is some sort of freak," he spat.

Barely pausing, Sans sent a wave of bones at the golem, which just barely managed to scrabble to its feet before the attacks hit. Karak followed Sans's lead and ran forward, blade flashing in the light of the crystals to land a hit before it could recover.

The creature let out a roar of anguish, many arms reaching to grab at the boy, but Sans blocked its efforts with another bone wall. Obviously beyond angry now, the golem charged at Sans again, screeching its displeasure.

Karak's sword caught it again as it flew by, and this time the blade bit through enough of the thick stitches that an entire arm came loose. Sans sidestepped as the creature slammed its full weight into the wall behind him, and its arm—only that one arm—scattered into dust.

Sans suppressed a shudder as he realized that a corresponding section of the creature's soul had shattered as well; the souls this thing was made out of were still attached to the bodies they'd originally been part of.

"It's flashing faster," Karak warned as the golem struggled to turn itself around again. "I swear the fuse wasn't this short before. Not good!"

'Faster' was an understatement: the golem pulsed with that internal red light, strong enough to brighten the entire room, and the light went dark only for half a second before returning to full intensity. The bomb was going to blow, and soon.

"get out of the blast radius!" Sans called, ducking under the swinging arms of the creature.

"We can't! It fills the whole room!"

' _impossible_ ,' a small part of his mind insisted, but he couldn't stop to think about it now. The flesh golem screamed again, freezing in place completely as its remaining hands clenched at its misshapen head. The light no longer pulsed, but remained steady. It was over.

Desperately, Sans opened another shortcut, but once again, he couldn't go anywhere outside of the room.

Trapped.

He stepped through to one corner of the room, turning and pinging the golem blue again, shoving it against the opposite corner with all his strength. It hit the stone wall at an odd angle and stayed there, the red light growing brighter and brighter as it continued to scream.

Karak tried one last time to land a hit, leaping through the air with a powerful overhead strike. He never made it.

The sound of the explosion registered first, oddly enough, and then something slammed into Sans's chest. He wasn't sure if the resulting crack was his ribcage or his skull hitting the wall, but suddenly the entire world burned around him. When he raised a hand, all he could make out through the blinding light were the bones of his fingers turning to dust before his eyes.

' _i'm dead_ ,' came one last, rather cliché thought. Then, everything went black.

* * *

File 6 Loaded

* * *

Sans knelt on all fours in soft dirt, breathing erratically, green leaves rustling all around him. He felt an overwhelming sense of disorientation as he looked up, trying to figure out what had just happened, both hands clenching at the soil below him. Was he... was this...? What?

Unexpected movement beside him caught his attention, and he jumped, trying to scramble to his feet only to find his movements impeded by branches and plants. A bush? Had he landed in a bush? How?

The movement turned out to be Karak crawling forward, the boy pulling himself out of the bush to stand in a slightly clearer section of forest, raising a hand to shield his eyes as he looked up at the side of the tower.

The... tower. Sans shook his head sharply to clear it before staring through the foliage at the sheer stone walls of the tower where, just seconds ago, he had been trapped.

"So... Uh. Let's see. We were trying to figure out how to get past the guards and get inside?" Karak said hesitantly, turning to frown at Sans. "Right?"

It took a while for Sans to answer as he tried to compute that, before finally he got out, "what... the hell? the hell was that, karak?"

Karak glanced around, apparently confused by the question. "What was what? The guards? Did I explain zombies to you yet?"

Sans struggled to his feet, shakily propping himself up on a nearby tree. "what? no! not the... karak, we just died. what the hell?"

For some reason, that made Karak's eyes light up. "Oh! So you do remember what happened! I wasn't sure if you would. Most people don't think anything of it when I Load a save, but I guess since you're part of my party now..."

"load a..." the implications of that finally sank in, and Sans' eyelights went dark, a harsh chuckle escaping unwillingly from his chest. "you can SAVE and LOAD. of course you can, that's just my luck." He laughed again, his knees feeling weak. Finally, he just let himself sit back down, both hands rubbing at his face as he muttered to himself.

"Sans?" Karak stooped down beside him, placing one hand on the skeleton's shoulder as his brows knit together in concern. "Are you alright?"

Sans wheezed slightly. "yeah. sure. just died, that's all, no problem. it's all good. because we have a time traveler in our group who didn't think that was worth mentioning." He let out another helpless laugh, shaking his head. "it's a good thing i don't have organs, or i'd be having a heart attack right now."

Karak grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. "Uhh well, sorry? I didn't think you'd believe me; I mean, nobody else has. And it was easier just not to say anything."

"it was easier to lie about a time limit than to mention that we might die in there?"

"I didn't lie," Karak said, not making eye contact as his smile dropped. "Not exactly. I just didn't know how to explain it. And I would have had to explain it all over again every run if you didn't remember."

Sans hated to admit, but Karak did have a point: it had been a brutally simple way to get the point across either way. He had to laugh, though, still shaking his head at the ridiculousness of it all.

Here he'd thought that his accidental travel here had the silver lining of at least getting him away from the resets, and it turned out the first person he ran into here could do it too.

This was different than with Frisk; he didn't distinctly remember all of their times through the Underground the way he could clearly remember this, but the fact of the matter was that even here, timelines were probably jumping around like crazy. Maybe it was a good thing he'd never be able to get the machine going again; he wouldn't have to worry about all that messed up data if he couldn't see it.

He did have to deal with Karak, though.

"welp. okay then," Sans chuckled. "gotta hand it to ya, kid. you managed to prank me back harder than i ever would have expected. good job."

Karak waved his hands, still looking away. "I wasn't trying to-"

His protests cut off abruptly as snaps, cracks, and the rustling of leaves began to resound through the trees. Both adventurers looked up in surprise as a zombie guard crashed towards them.

"whoops. forgot about them again," Sans said lightly, and he started to get to his feet. This time around, the zombie didn't seem inclined to stop and chat, instead focusing on the human.

Karak grimaced, dodging the zombie's first attack and scrambling backwards. "Okay, no. I'd rather not deal with the guards right now. Hang on."

* * *

File 6 Loaded

* * *

Sans knelt on all fours in soft dirt, leaves rustling all around him as he stared down at his hands clenching the soil in front of him. "what?"

Karak reached over and grabbed his wrist. "C'mon," the boy whispered, tugging lightly. "Let's get out of earshot first, then we can talk."

Sans narrowed his eyes at the boy, teeth gritting together harder than usual. "ah. so you can just sorta do that at will. great. good to know."

"Come on," Karak urged, smiling a little. Sans complied, climbing out from under the bush and getting to his feet before opening a shortcut.

Karak took way too many steps before he realized that they now already stood at the top of the hill looking down into the valley, definitely far enough away not to have to worry about zombie guards. He sputtered slightly, then chuckled, turning back to Sans.

"Alright, so now we both have ways of catching each other off guard," Karak said wryly. "I can Load saves, and you can teleport."

"one of those two is waaaay more disorienting than the other," Sans commented, folding his arms with a grin.

Karak nodded. "I know, right? One minute I'm standing up to get out of a bush, the next I'm at the top of a hill. And even weirder was that time when I walked into a hallway and ended up in the middle of a random field."

Sans laughed despite himself, shaking his head and sitting down on a nearby log. "alright, alright. but seriously. how long have you known you could reset?"

The boy's face finally grew serious, and he came to sit next to Sans on the log. Lacing his fingers together in front of him, he stared vacantly at the ground rather than try to face his companion. "About... a month of real time, I guess. That was when the monsters attacked Genrik—my home village. Hundreds of them, of all kinds: lizard creatures, minotaurs, slimes, dragons, elementals..."

Sans remained silent, watching a sea of emotions wash slowly over Karak's features.

"I died about... four or five times that night," Karak continued slowly. "And it took me another few tries after that to keep my family alive with me. The village elder called this ability 'the heart of a true hero.' But I... I couldn't save everyone in Genrik, no matter what I did."

After a long pause, Sans let out a sigh. "geez, kid. i'm sorry. you can't blame yourself, though, not after all that."

Karak shook his head grimly. "I... don't. Not really. But that's why I'm out here on this quest in the first place. To find a way to keep the monsters from..." He finally glanced up at Sans, almost apologetically. "Well, I was angry at first. I thought if I could find the Sacred Peaces, I could wish for all the monsters to just... just die or something."

The corners of Sans's mouth turned downward. "can't say i blame you."

"But I don't want that anymore," Karak insisted adamantly. "And not just because of you, though obviously that's a big part of it. I've seen another side to the monsters here, even some of the more mindless ones. I've been thinking... that maybe if the monsters could just live sealed away from humans, maybe that would be better for both of us."

Sans chuckled darkly at the irony. "oh. by, say, trapping all the monsters underground for centuries, perhaps? hate to break it to ya, kiddo, but that's been done."

Karak's face fell as he realized Sans's implication. "... Oh. You were trapped underground?"

"yup. papyrus and i grew up in the Underground. not a cheery place. we were all pretty happy to get out of there."

The boy didn't seem to know how to respond to that, and eventually he went back to staring down at his hands. "Maybe," he mumbled, biting his lower lip, "I could... I don't know. How do I protect everyone, Sans?"

"you can't," Sans said simply, though his smile had turned genuine. "but the fact that you want to might just be enough, especially with your power. you know, it was a human that saved monsterkind and broke the barrier in my world, letting us go back to the surface. you remind me of them: determined to get everything right. i believe in you."

Karak didn't answer, instead giving Sans a brief, grateful smile before returning to his thoughts.

They sat in silence for a while, and Sans's attention drifted down to the tower they'd been trying to get through. The sun shone off the windows on the top floor, the strangely jagged-looking peaked roof blending in amongst the trees in the valley. Even from here, he could see the tiny forms of the zombies that patrolled the outside of the building. Two stood before the front door, guarding the entrance into that first room with the...

Sans's eyes narrowed. "that's what was bothering me!" he exclaimed suddenly, snapping his fingers with the distinctively loud clack of bone on bone. "that ghost wrecked that whole room, but you said you'd gotten through there before. that's only possible because you reset to before the stuff was thrown, isn't it?"

Karak nodded, but before he could say anything, Sans let out an overdramatic sigh. "augh. don't tell me we have to get past the ghost again. that was exhausting enough the first time. ya really couldn't've Saved after that?"

"I don't really choose when I can Save," Karak admitted with a laugh. "It just... happens sometimes."

"when you're feeling particularly determined, right?"

"Uh... Yeah, now that you mention it. How'd you know?"

Sans winked at him. "just a hunch, i guess. more importantly, though. what are we gonna do about that mini boss back there? y'know, once we get past the annoying ghost again."

Karak shrugged. "You seemed to be okay with just attacking it at the end there. Something about it seemed to freak you out. What was it?"

"its soul," Sans explained, becoming a bit more serious again. "whoever made that creature took a bunch of monsters and shoved their pieces together into one giant conglomeration, including ripping their souls apart to do the same thing."

The skeleton exhaled softly, rubbing the back of his head before admitting, "that's one thing i don't understand, to be honest: regular monster souls usually can't be touched, no matter what happens to the monster's physical body. so how did this guy manage to access the souls enough to tear them to pieces and sew them back together, all without killing the monsters?" He shook his head. "maybe souls work differently here. who knows. what i do know, though, is that the poor thing is in a lot of pain."

"So maybe it's best to put it out of its misery?" Karak suggested gently.

Sans raised his hands slightly in a shrug. "that was my first instinct. the thing is literally an a-bomb-ination, after all." He winked to emphasize his pun, at which the corners of Karak's mouth tugged up a little, but then he went on. "thinking more on it, though, i'm not sure what the right thing to do is. it's still a living creature—or creatures—that don't deserve to die. but i dunno what we could do to ease its suffering, especially with that bomb inside it."

"It might just be a lost cause," Karak said. "But... I guess we could try removing the bomb somehow. Cut open some of those cords holding it together and see if we can get inside?"

Sans thought about it for a bit. "that might work. might just make everything worse."

Karak hummed to himself, biting his lip. "Well... It doesn't have a mouth to get at the inside from, so... Could you... maybe teleport inside of it?"

That had Sans cracking up. "haha, what? no, that's a terrible idea."

"Why?" Karak challenged. "Better than cutting it up. Just open one of your shortcuts, and..."

Sans waved him to a stop. "my shortcuts are taking advantage of small rips in time and space. even if we managed to get it to line up with one of those points, what i'm essentially doing is making a wormhole. a portal."

Karak nodded. "Yeah, and? That's even better, you can just open a portal, reach in, and grab the bomb."

Sans chuckled, shaking his head. "even if it were that easy, it wouldn't be a good idea. karak, what happens if you fill a cup with water, then poke a hole in the side of the cup?"

"The water pours out of the hole," Karak said immediately, frowning.

"exactly. if i were to open a shortcut to the bottom of a lake, for instance, the water in the lake would start draining through it, and we'd become very wet even if we didn't actually step through it. now, imagine that lake is a creature with internal organs and such."

Karak's frown deepened. "Oh. Ew. Okay, I see your point. So what should we do, then?"

"for now? let's try your idea of accessing the bomb by cutting cords." Sans got to his feet, dusting himself off lightly. "if we can get the bomb to stop, that'll at least give us more time to think about how to help it."


	6. Resets

"ready?"

Karak nodded, and Sans dropped the two of them in front of the tower's main door. Thankfully, it didn't take much to distract the guards with random noises in the bushes. Karak began pushing it open, and a few moments later, they were inside. Again.

It was slightly unnerving to see the room looking so pristine. The low tables sat undisturbed in the corners, chairs tucked neatly beside them, with the various plates and things set out on top as though a meal would be served shortly.

Then the ghost monster appeared. It looked exactly the same as before, and reacted to their presence exactly the same as before.

It even grabbed exactly the same first three dishes to throw at them as it screeched its disapproval.

Sans ducked out of the way, and Karak drew his sword so he could use it to smash any pottery that flew his direction.

The entire rest of the fight was... identical, as far as he could tell. Sans knew well from sparring with Papyrus, and (mainly) watching Papyrus spar with Undyne, that fighting the same person many times would let you become familiar with their attack patterns and the general way they fought, but this was different.

It was one thing to know how your opponent fights, and completely another to engage in exactly the same fight. If Sans concentrated hard enough, he could actually predict exactly where on the wall a bowl was going to smash, and stand just out of the range of pottery shards coming off of it.

Was this really how Frisk saw the world? It seemed... obnoxiously repetitive.

Eventually, the ghost ran out of dishes and switched to throwing chairs and tables at them. At that point, Sans tried to focus on the large projectiles instead of on his inner musings and extreme feelings of déjà vu.

It did seem like the fight was taking longer than it had the first time around, though of course it actually took exactly the same amount of time from one phase to the next.

He ducked to avoid a predictably wildly thrown chair.

That perception of time dilation was probably, he eventually decided, because he was anticipating each upcoming move, waiting for that table to smash there, and that chair to explode there.

The ghost ran out of furniture to throw again. Sans didn't taunt it this time, but it still yelled angrily as it hefted the floor tiles into the air, each one spinning slightly as it hung there.

"I hate this part," Karak muttered. And then, the world turned into a blur of movement. Again.

It wasn't exactly easy to get through the ghost's final attack, per say. Sans still had several close calls as shards of pottery and tile and splinters of wood flew in clouds in all directions. But he'd gotten through it before, and he got through it this time, too.

Sans and Karak were both completely out of breath by the time the ghost faded sadly away.

"can we not do that again?" Sans asked, both hands on his knees as he tried to gather up his energy. "have i mentioned that i'm totally not cut out for this kind of thing?"

"Once or twice," Karak said wryly, flopping down into a clear patch of dirt and beginning to rifle through his bag. "And yet you still manage to get through without getting hit once."

Sans grinned at him, but didn't answer the boy's unasked question. Karak shook his head with a sigh, watching the skeleton as he sat back against a pile of debris and closed his eyes.

They rested for a few minutes, then Karak got back to his feet, stretching both arms

above his head. "Okay, so. Strategy for when we get in there?"

"aim for the cords," Sans replied with a shrug, not moving. "see if we can figure out where the bomb is, and hope it doesn't explode." He cracked open an eye, smirking. "again."

"It probably will," Karak warned as he turned to Sans, hands clenched into fists. Still, he had a grin on his face. "But we can handle it, right? We'll save this monster, no matter how many tries it takes."

Sans hesitated. "i'd rather it only took one try," he admitted. He wasn't sure he actually could handle all this dangerous repetition and literally dying again, just for a monster who likely couldn't be saved anyway. "this resetting business is... unnerving to say the least."

Even the act itself of resetting the timeline was probably doing some kind of damage; Sans had no idea whether resetting was what caused his own timeline to appear to come to an "end" the way his instruments had said they would, but it was still a worrying thought.

There was no real use trying to explain that to Karak, though. It had never done any good saying anything to Frisk, so why would it be any different here? Karak had latched on to the idea of saving this monster, and the kid was nothing if not full of determined stubbornness.

"Too late," Karak informed him. "We already used our first try. This is the second, technically. C'mon, let's do this."

Sans let out a sigh, steeled himself, then took the boy's proffered hand, getting to his feet. "alright."

* * *

The bomb went off in their faces.

Cutting through the cords, it appeared, only made the countdown faster. Sans almost thought he caught a glimpse of something metal buried within it before he found himself slammed against the wall again, followed by the now-familiar sight of bushes all around him.

They tried it again, cutting as quickly as they could, but the fuse went just as fast as they did. No progress there.

They tried it again. And again.

Karak moved forward enthusiastically, Sans dragging along reluctantly. It seemed like each failure only made the boy want to try even harder to solve this 'puzzle' even as the skeleton became more and more weary of the monotony.

They tried pinning the golem to a wall to keep it from moving as they inspected it. Super bad idea.

They tried not touching the flesh golem at all. It blew up, though it did take a little longer to do so that time.

They tried propping open the door with a log from outside, to avoid being trapped. Didn't work; whatever spell was keeping shortcuts from working apparently applied to the room itself, regardless of the state of the doors.

Which meant that when he tried blowing the far door open with Gaster Blasters, he succeeded in cracking the stone, but it didn't help. The barrier (because what else could they call it?) kept them in the room physically just as effectively as it blocked his shortcuts. The doors themselves were apparently just for show.

Of course, the Gaster Blasters also resulted in scaring the crap out of Karak, who hadn't seen them before that point.

"How long have you been able to summon giant skulls that shoot massive light beams?!" the boy demanded once they were safely back in the bushes outside the tower once more.

Sans could only shrug, winking. "did i forget to mention that? whoops."

"I swear, you and your secrets are going to be the death of me," Karak complained good-naturedly.

The skeleton pointed finger guns at his companion. "so? yours already have been the death of me."

Karak laughed. "That doesn't count. I fixed that."

And it turned out, on the next run, it wasn't Sans but the ghost monster that caused the death of Karak. Table right to the face. Sans was not going to let him live that one down.

They tried again.

Sans could dodge all of the ghost's moves in his sleep now (he knew this because he tried it once, much to Karak's mixed amusement and concern). And other than the explosion at the end of each attempt, Sans remained unscathed by the golem's attacks, too.

"How are you still not getting even a scratch on you?" the boy wanted to know, grinning as he dug in his pouch for a healing potion. "That's not fair."

The skeleton only shrugged, smirking back tiredly. "are you kidding? it's all muscle memory at this point, and i don't even have those. you gotta work on your memorization skills, kiddo."

Sans regretted his words as the boy, filled with determination, vowed to eventually finish a run without getting hit. Sans hoped with everything he had left that they didn't have to do this enough times for that to happen. He was so sick of the loop.

They tried again.

The downstairs room, they discovered, had the same barrier-like effect as the floor above it. As long as the ghost continued to throw things at them, Sans's shortcuts would only lead to spots inside that room.

He couldn't shortcut from the bushes outside the tower to anywhere inside, either. Whoever had built this place had somehow accounted for every method of cheating Sans had.

They tried aga-

"that's it. i'm done." Sans flopped face-first on the ground in front of the tower's main doors, not caring anymore that he was in plain view of the zombie guards if they happened to wander back this direction.

Karak tugged on his arm, trying to at least get him back to the safety of the bushes, but Sans wouldn't budge, holding himself down with blue magic. "nope. no more. i give up."

"Sans." The skeleton could practically hear the boy roll his eyes. "Stop being so dramatic. Come on, we gotta move."

"or what, we'll die?" Sans laughed, forehead pressed against the packed dirt.

"Hey, dying still hurts, okay?" Karak tapped his foot lightly against Sans's skull. "Get up or I'm going in without you."

Sans didn't care.

Karak sighed, then turned and pushed the door open, puffing a little as it moved an inch at a time. Before he let go of it to allow it to close, he glanced back at Sans, who still hadn't budged in that time. "Please?"

"i'm not moving," Sans informed him tiredly. "even if i could shortcut into there, i wouldn't want..." He trailed off sharply, suddenly lifting his head and staring at the open doorway, which Karak was beginning to struggle to keep open.

"What?" the boy asked. "Should I come back out?"

"... i can shortcut inside," Sans marveled. "now that the door's open. but that doesn't make any sense... karak, shut the door."

The boy released his grip on the door, stepping backwards so they were both outside, and it slammed closed. Sans abruptly lost his connection to the shortcut. "huh."

Karak grinned at him. "What did you see? Do you have a new idea to try?"

"let's get past the ghost again, and i'll tell ya," Sans got quickly to his feet, noting that the guards were on their way over, not looking too happy to see them.

Enthusiastically, Karak pushed at the door with new vigor, and within a few moments, the two had slipped inside again.

Sans opened a shortcut, aiming for the stairwell on the other side of the room. When it actually worked, he marveled at it until the door behind them closed all the way, abruptly cutting off his shortcuts again as the barrier went up.

"that doesn't make sense," he said again as the ghost slowly materialized in the center of the room. "apparently, the barrier only activates when the door is closed. still couldn't shortcut upstairs, but i did reach the stairs themselves."

Karak ducked out of the way of a thrown plate, but managed to dodge straight into the path of the bowl that followed it, distracted by Sans's words. "Okay, so what does that mea—ack!"

Sans deftly pulled the boy out of the way just before the pottery could make contact with Karak's shoulder.

"it means we might be able to bypass the room entirely if the door doesn't close."

It took Karak several more rounds of hurried dodging before he could reply. "But the door always closes the moment we step into the room," he pointed out, huffing to catch his breath. "And the monster wakes up just after that."

The skeleton winked at him and stepped slightly to the left to avoid a chair that hurtled through the air. Sans waited for it to smash against the wall in a spray of splinters before stating, "not if we don't step into the room in the first place."

"Huh." Karak didn't speak again, instead concentrating on not getting hit. As tempting as it was for Sans to tease the boy about getting tabled earlier, he didn't want him to actually die again, so he opted to stop talking as well.

Eventually, the final barrage came, and then the fight was over. Karak didn't have to dig in his pouch for the healing potion this time; they'd done this enough that he had the location of the potion pretty much memorized. He chugged it down, grimacing as his cuts and scrapes healed, then turned again to Sans, who of course didn't need healing or even much time to rest.

"Okay, so we're going to try skipping past the room altogether?"

Sans grinned, checking the room and noting that his shortcut to the stairway was available again. "yup. when you go up the stairs, don't enter the room. stop just before the threshold."

Karak nodded, mirroring the grin. "This might finally do it. If we don't go inside, then the bomb won't activate and we don't have to worry about defusing it. Come on!"

With that, he raced to the stairwell and began taking the steps two at a time. Sans followed at a more leisurely pace.

From the top of the stairs, the two could see into the next room where the mini-boss waited, concealed behind the left wall. Sans peered around scrutinizingly, searching for shortcuts.

The outside walls of the tower were still blocked by whatever barrier had kept him from shortcutting here in the first place. But there, on the opposite side of the room, Sans could access the next staircase up.

Turning around as though about to go down the stairs again, he gestured to Karak. "follow me. i know-"

Used to his shenanigans by now (Sans would have to fix that), Karak shoved him a little with a grin. "A shortcut. Yeah, yeah." They both laughed, and walked through.

Sans felt a strange tugging, like a soft twang in the air, as they did so, and the door behind them slammed shut.

Karak glanced around quickly, disoriented as he usually was after one of Sans's shortcuts, then his eyes went wide as he realized what had happened.

They now stood in the stairwell leading further up, but the door to the mini-boss room had closed anyway, without them in it. From within, they both heard the monster's familiar roar, and then the walls trembled from the force of a body slam.

"It doesn't know what to do," Karak whispered. "It's just beating on the walls now."

Sans reached out and put a hand on the closed stone door, the corners of his mouth turning downward. "is the bomb active?"

Karak went pale, horrified. "Oh no. It probably-"

Before he could even finish contemplating that idea, the door shook harder, the impact nearly throwing Sans backwards away from it. As it was, the skeleton tripped on the lowest step and fell sprawling into Karak, bones rattling. The creature inside the room let out another haunted scream, the one that usually meant the timer had run out.

"Already?" Karak exclaimed. And then everything went white.

And then...

...slowly, color faded back into the world. Sans was still leaned up against Karak, who had somehow managed to keep his footing through the explosion. The boy looked at him and said something, but all Sans could hear was a high-pitched whine in the air.

Stunned, Sans glanced around. The two of them still stood in the stairwell, right where they'd been before. The door had been blown open, and large fragments of stone lay scattered everywhere across the room and the stairs. If Karak hadn't been practically holding Sans at the time, one of those chunks might have hit him, and it would have been game over again, but thankfully, he was spared that fate.

Karak carefully released Sans, letting go fully once he was sure the skeleton could stand on his own. This time when he spoke, it was only mostly muffled. "-okay? You seem sort of dazed."

Sans nodded. "yeah, 'm fine," he mumbled, his own voice sounding slightly strange to him. "just need to answer the doorbell. someone's real impatient out there."

Rubbing his ears, Karak grimaced. "Yeah, my ears are ringing, too. But we're alive."

"somehow. but the flesh golem..."

Karak frowned, his gaze returning to the room they'd just bypassed. Sluggishly, he walked back into it, unhindered by any barriers, and went to one knee in the center, reaching out to scoop up a bit of the dust on the floor.

"... I guess we failed again," he said finally. "I... I'll reset, then."

He started to get back to his feet, but before he could, Sans put a hand on his shoulder, looking the boy in the eye. "let it go," he said gently. "that monster was beyond our ability to help long before we got here. we did our best, but we can move forward now."

"But..."

Sans shook his head. "no. instead, let's go find whoever did this in the first place, and teach him a lesson."

For a long moment, Karak didn't respond, simply inhaling and exhaling slowly. He seemed to be struggling with the idea, not wanting to let go of the goal he'd been pursuing. Eventually, though, he came to a decision, a hard look on his face.

Letting the dust trickle out of his hand, he stood up straight. "Yeah, you're right. And you know what?" A strange spark glinted in his eyes.

"I've got a new Save point."


	7. The Necromancer

The next room up seemed somewhat interesting. It held a large cauldron in the center, and the walls were lined with shelves of colorful potion ingredients of various types, some bottled and some simply lying there ready to be tossed into the pot. It was probably one of those intellectually challenging puzzles that normally Sans would be all for solving.

Not today, though. Sans was done playing games with this necromancer guy.

Without stepping inside the room, they could see the stairwell on the opposite side of the room, and Sans opened a shortcut directly across.

The doors shut behind them as their passing activated the barriers in the room, but they paid them no heed and instead silently continued climbing the stairs.

The room above that was the most complicated one yet: somehow, inexplicably, the floor was literally lava. Several platforms floated in seemingly random places at various heights. A jumping puzzle, then, to try and cross the lava to the stairwell on the other side.

Sans only paused before making his shortcut because there were also monsters in the room; two of them, skeletons, with blank expressions on their bony faces, standing on small balconies on either side of the room. These skeletons were also naked, Sans noted with some discomfort, but unlike the ones they'd encountered in the open field, these two each held a bow and a quiver of arrows.

"Sometimes the monsters know how to use weapons like that," Karak said quietly with a shrug as they stepped back down a few stairs to stay out of sniper range. "I saw a lizard creature with a sword once. I don't know why they can do it. It's only ever the ones in places like this, not the ones you'd find in the wild."

Sans peered out at the skeletons again. "i didn't think they were intelligent enough to handle bows. maybe they're like trained... pets?"

An arrow zipped past his face, and he ducked his head back around the corner to avoid it. It glanced off the back wall of the stairwell and clattered to the ground harmlessly.

"... very well trained," Sans amended, a bead of sweat dripping down his face as he stared at the projectile. That had been dangerously close.

"Good thing we don't actually have to deal with them," Karak noted cheekily. "Know a shortcut?"

"yup. here we go."

A few steps later, they were heading upstairs again.

Before they could round the corner, Sans noticed that the light streaming from the room above had that distinct blue tint that doesn't come from artificial light. True daylight, then, probably from the windows they'd seen outside.

"We're at the top," Karak noted aloud before Sans could. The skeleton merely nodded, his grin darkening. If the necromancer was anywhere in the tower, it'd be here.

Out of habit, Karak stopped before actually crossing the threshold, instead peeking around the corner into the room, which definitely looked to be a workshop of sorts.

"You may as well come in," a dry voice called. "You can't skip past this room. I've been expecting you. Though, not quite so quickly, I must admit."

Automatically, looking sheepish, Karak stepped inside. Sans let out a sigh at the kid's lack of survival instinct, but followed after him anyway. If they were going to be attacked straight off, he might as well watch.

The necromancer stood by a work table, which sat flush against the wall directly under a huge window. Each wall had its own table, each with varying arrays of tools and materials, all of which were well organized but gruesome-looking. In one corner of the room was a cage with what looked like a very small monster asleep on the floor.

The man himself looked to be middle aged for a human, with just a few gray hairs streaking through his slicked-back black hair and short beard. He managed to pull off looking dignified even while wearing floor-length black robes with the hood pulled down around his shoulders.

He gave Sans a scrutinizing, condescending look. "Aww, you dressed up your skeleton. How cute."

Sans shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, giving an easy smile at the rude 'greeting' they'd been given.

Karak quickly explained, "Oh, he's not my skeleton."

The man seemed a bit surprised by this, but not nearly as startled as when Sans added, "also, i dressed myself, thanks. i'm not quite that lazy."

With long, quick strides, the necromancer advanced towards Sans, a grin forming on his face as he rubbed his hands together in excitement. Sans flinched back, on his guard, but the man stopped several feet away from him, examining from a distance. "Fascinating. It talks? How did you get it to do that?"

"I said hello," Karak said dryly. "And he said hello back. Where are you keeping the Sacred Peace?"

Disappointment flashed across the man's features for an instant, and he glanced up at Karak with a frown. "Oh dear, there seems to have been a misunderstanding. You see, with the way you spared all my guards, then so easily skipped past almost all my traps without actually disabling them, and all with a skeleton monster in tow, I was under the impression that you were a novice necromancer peacefully seeking my advice." He laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound.

Karak's nose wrinkled as his hand closed tightly around the hilt of his sword. "Me, a death mage? Never!"

"Pity." The man's cocky smile reappeared. "Though I suppose it matters little in the end. I would have had the same response to your intrusion either way."

With that, he threw one hand carelessly into the air, and a visible pulse of magic emanated from it in all directions, like a rapidly expanding bubble. Sans and Karak both braced themselves as the spell surged towards them, filling the whole room so that neither of them could possibly evade it.

It swept over them, pushing Sans backwards a step, and then...

Everything seemed to be the same as before. Glancing at Karak, Sans noted that the boy looked confused as well.

Sans shoved his hands back into his pockets, relaxing. "was that supposed to do something?" he quipped. "'cause, uh, all i see is a whole lotta nothin."

The necromancer turned back to Sans unhurriedly, looking at him as though he could see something the skeleton couldn't. "Hmm... Truly fascinating. You appear to have a higher resistance to it than I'm used to. Still... Skeleton, I want to see your abilities. Attack the boy."

Sans outright laughed, raising one hand without really thinking about it. "really? you think i'm just going to do whatever you ask, just like that?"

The necromancer's smile turned cruel. "Yes. I do."

And with no small amount of horror, Sans suddenly realized he was gathering magic in the hand he'd raised. "uh... karak, you might want to-" But before he could finish that thought, the bone attack he was forming sent itself straight at the boy.

Karak yelped, throwing himself out of the way of the wall of bones, drawing his sword to hack away at a few to keep them from hitting him. Sans felt strangely cold as he directed the attack, struggling to dismiss the bones and instead summoning more, complex patterns of bones swirling at the human he'd befriended.

Finally, he managed to cut off the attack, and Sans went to his knees, breathing hard. Karak was by his side almost immediately, free hand on the skeleton's shoulder. "Sans?" he gasped out. "Are you alright? Snap out of it..."

"i... i'm out of it," Sans said slowly, staring down at his hands as he clenched and unclenched them. They were perfectly under his control now, and he didn't seem to be using any other magic against his will. For the moment, anyway. "but you might not want to stand so close. that spell..."

The necromancer laughed, clapping his hands slowly. "Very good, skeleton. A magic bone attack, I see. Tell me, do you have any other magic attacks?"

 _i'm not telling you_ , he thought. "yes," he found himself saying instead, though he refrained from extrapolating further.

"Interesting. Tell me what they are."

"gravity manipulation..." Sans tried to bite back the words, but he couldn't stop them. "cyan attacks, karmic retribution, g-gaster blasters..."

"Stop!" Karak yelled at the necromancer. "What did you do to him?"

The necromancer clicked his tongue impatiently. "You're less observant than I'd hoped. What, you think I got all the monsters in my army to listen to my commands by simply asking them nicely? With just a bit of magical influence, however..." Then he seemed to notice Sans raising a hand in his direction. "Also, no. You will not direct any attacks at me, skeleton."

Sans's magic abruptly shifted to the side, and the bone attack shattered against the ground just behind the man rather than straight into him as he'd intended. He glared at his hands, frustrated but with a glimmer of an idea. The wording the man had used still let Sans use his attacks in general, just not aimed directly at him.

With another cruel smile, the necromancer stepped toward one of his work tables, idly rearranging some of the tools that lay on its surface. "Good. Now, boy. You say this isn't your skeleton. Where did it come from, and why does it follow you? If you don't answer, then you are useless to me, and I'll make the skeleton kill you. So?"

Karak paused a moment to look at Sans, who gave him a slight nod to go ahead. Sans wasn't sure he could stop himself from following direct commands, and if he were perfectly honest with himself, that thought was somewhat terrifying.

With a determined look, Karak frowned at the necromancer. "I met Sans in a field not too far from here. He needed help, and now he's my friend. Happy now?"

The man glanced at him over his shoulder, his grin even wider than before. "Happy? Certainly. Satisfied? Not yet. Do you have any idea how long I've been trying to create my own skeleton monsters? Oh, the normal ones obey their orders just fine, of course, but they lack... a certain amount of finesse." Without turning around completely, he raised a hand and snapped his fingers. "Hold the boy," he ordered.

Sans braced himself to resist, but the command apparently wasn't directed at him. Karak cried out, equally caught off guard as the two skeleton monsters from the floor below came up from behind, each holding down one of Karak's arms. The boy struggled, but they held him fast.

"My zombies can perform much more complicated tasks," the necromancer went on sorting through things on his worktable as though nothing had interrupted his train of thought. "I wouldn't call them intelligent, by any means, but they are closer to what I need to command my army. But they are in a constant state of decomposition, which is quite annoying."

He paused to hold up what appeared to be a human femur, examining it for faults as he continued to talk. "A skeleton doesn't decay, and so would be more permanent, less flimsy. Any time I try to use my techniques to raise just a skeleton, however, instead of a whole or partial corpse, the spell fails and the whole thing quite literally falls apart."

He turned to face Sans again. "So you can see why I'm interested in where you came from... Sans, was it?"

Sans didn't answer him, instead addressing Karak. "hold very, very still," he instructed, and then sent an array of cyan bones flying the boy's direction.

Karak froze, and so the light blue attack went right through him, taking down the skeletons holding him with a blow to the knees that sent them both to the floor.

"now!" Sans shouted, and immediately, Karak dashed across the room, sword swinging. Sans followed up Karak's attack with a line of bones that crunched through the necromancer's worktable, knocking it over and sending debris and materials scattering towards the man. He couldn't attack him directly, but he could provide a distraction.

The necromancer ducked under a flying wrench, spun, and flung a hand up in the air. A red barrier appeared before him, stopping Karak's blade just inches from his face. Sans noted grimly that they'd at least managed to startle the man, beads of sweat forming on his face, but it hadn't been enough to land a hit.

Slowly, the man's expression shifted back to one of smug confidence as Karak tried one more time to shatter the magic shield. His sword once again made contact, but did no visible damage. "What army are you talking about?" Karak demanded. "We didn't see any army."

Almost rolling his eyes, the necromancer stepped backwards, examining what was left of the worktable Sans had destroyed. "I don't keep the army here, obviously. I'm only in this dismal tower in the first place because the Sacred Peace attracts monsters to it in order to defend it."

"you're a strange sort of monster," Sans commented, finally getting back up to his feet and starting to edge his way around the room.

"Funny. So are you." The necromancer grinned at him. "But monsters like you are exactly why I'm here. If I can't use my spell to add you directly to my army, which is a bit up-in-the-air at this point, then at least I can figure out what makes you tick, so I can make my own versions of you. A win/win for me, really."

Karak scowled. "So you camp out here, mind control any monsters that come near, and then move them away from here so that more monsters will come."

"Yes, that is what I was implying. Very astute." The man's sarcasm dripped from his words. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a skeleton to dissect, and you've proven to be worthless to me. Sans, kill the boy."

Sans's eyelights went out as his body began to move against his will again. This time, however, he was prepared for the command.

True to his orders, he packed the attack full of killing intent, but that was all the necromancer had told him to do, and Sans was lazy enough to do the bare minimum of anything he put his mind to. The single white bone inched its way across the room toward Karak, who took a single, slow sidestep out of the way when it got close.

"oh no. i missed," Sans intoned. "guess i'll try again."

The second bone was identical to the first, though it traveled even slower, if that was possible.

The necromancer did not look at all amused. "Ah. I see; you have enough willpower to resist the spell to some extent. Obnoxious, but also fascinating. I suppose I'll have to be more specific. Sans, use your strongest abilities and all your effort to kill the boy."

Sans felt the spell take firmer hold of him, and he shakily managed to slide both hands into his pockets. "welp. nice knowing ya, kid. don't get hit."

He barely got that out when his body started moving again. His left hand reached out and pinged Karak's soul blue, then slammed downward, knocking the boy off his feet.

Immediately, he let go of the blue magic and summoned a complex array of bones, shoving them toward the boy.

Karak couldn't recover from the sudden onslaught fast enough to dodge all of them. Everywhere a bone hit, a thick purple ooze—KR poison—erupted outward to sap the boy's HP even further.

But Sans wasn't done yet; the moment Karak got past all the bones, the boy found himself face to face with not one, but six Gaster Blasters. He didn't survive the second blast.

* * *

File 7 Loaded

* * *

"Holy crap, Sans."

The two of them abruptly stood in the middle of the room where the mini-boss had once been, and Karak stared openly at his skeleton friend.

Sans shoved his hands back in his pockets, leaned back on his heels, and shrugged. "sorry."

Karak didn't seem to have heard the apology. "Holy. Crap," he said again. "Y'know, the more I learn about you, the scarier you get. What was that?"

"which part?" Sans winked. "a lot of things happened just now."

The boy spluttered indecisively for a few moments before finally mumbling, "The purple stuff. I mighta been able to get past the rest, but that stuff hurt."

Sans nodded. "i thought that might happen. it's called karmic retribution, and it does more damage to people with high LV than it does to people with low LV."

"Why?"

Letting out a sigh, Sans sat down on one of the broken steps. "because where i'm from, LV stands for Level of Violence. it measures a person's capacity to hurt others." He let the lights go out of his eye sockets. "so someone with a high LV has hurt—has killed—a lot of people."

Karak winced, looking almost like that information physically pained him. "That explains your initial reaction to me... But that's not what I meant. Why do you have abilities like that?"

Sans looked up at the boy, tilting his head in mild confusion. "what do you mean?"

Gesturing vaguely around him, Karak said, "The gaster blasters, the different bone attacks, this karmic retribution... You said that monsters are generally peaceful in your world, so why do you have so many devastatingly powerful abilities?"

It took Sans a moment to answer, and when he did, it was with another sigh and a pat on the stairs beside him. Karak took it for the invitation it was and sat down, still watching Sans with a expression that was part curiosity, part wariness.

Sans looked away. "you're right; monsters don't like to fight. but they do have magical attacks to use to defend themselves. and i'm a bit of a... special case," he admitted. "you see, monsters are very in tune with their souls, and their magic reflects that. my soul is... well, not as strong as others. if you Check me, you'll probably see, but i only have 1 ATK, 1 DEF, and 1 HP."

Karak's eyes widened. "One HP?"

"right. so i can't get hit. not even once." It was hard for Sans to admit all of this, but he figured it was better to give at least some explanation. "i got good at dodging to compensate. i also scientifically developed techniques like the shortcuts to help me. but more than that, my magic overcompensated too, giving me abilities that would allow me to defend myself more easily."

That wasn't the entire reason for all of his abilities, but he didn't feel like going into all the details. As a side note, he mentioned, "using those abilities tires me out very quickly, but when i use everything in one short burst like that, most people go down on the first attack."

"Like I did," Karak said with a nod. He gave Sans a wry smile. "I forgive you, by the way. You couldn't help it."

Sans grinned. "speaking of which, what's our next plan of attack? we need to keep him from using me against you."

Karak shrugged, taking a moment to let all the new information sink in. Finally, he said, "Well, let's go over what we learned from the first encounter. We know the layout of the room now. We know he has the ability to use those barriers, or something very like the barriers, as shields. We know he can control monsters."

"which is problematic."

"Yeah. And he's gathering monsters from here for an army of some sort for some reason, but he's not keeping them here, so other than the two skeletons from the jumping puzzle room, he doesn't really have much backup."

Sans idly tapped the side of his face as he thought. "pretty sure he doesn't actually know where the sacred peace thing is, either," he said finally.

Karak started slightly. "Really? What do you mean?"

"he seems more the type to show off that sort of thing. display it. probably even study it." Sans shrugged. "most likely, he knows it's here, but doesn't know exactly where."

"Huh." Karak pondered that. "Then I guess we'll have to find it after we've defeated him."

"yup. we also know he has some way of monitoring the rooms in this tower, at least visually," Sans added. "he was able to tell we were skipping rooms, but still seemed surprised when he heard me talking."

Karak nodded. "Well, you don't open your mouth when you talk, so yeah, if he can only see stuff, he wouldn't realize I'm not just talking to myself."

"right. so definitely no audio. that means we can plan without him overhearing, at least."

"We could do that anyway," Karak mentioned. "I could just reset to before we started talking. But yeah, I guess it's nice not having to do that. So what is our plan?"

Sans thought for a moment. "well, if we attack before he can cast that spell, then he can't manipulate me."

With a wry smirk, Karak nodded again. "Yeah, best if we avoid that. He'll be expecting us to attack him, though."

Sans shook his head, smiling. "not necessarily. didn't he say he thought you might be a fellow necromancer asking for advice? we'll walk in there, you introduce yourself, and then we'll hit him when he's distracted."

"Right. Don't use the big sequence of attacks you used on me, though," Karak said. "We need more information. I want to know what he's using that army for."

Sans nodded. "yup, seems suspicious. ok, we'll ask him about it. not nicely, though."

Karak grimaced. "Of course not. Come on, let's do this."

Dusting himself off, Sans got back up to his feet and turned towards the staircase. "ok. up we go." Together, they began their ascent.

All too soon, they stood on the steps just outside the necromancer's main chamber, and Karak strode confidently inside, Sans following silently.

The necromancer stood at the same table as before. "I've been expecting you," he said without turning around, "though not quite so quickly, I must admit." Karak didn't answer, and he turned to smirk at the two of them. "Aww, you dressed up your skeleton. How cute."

"Yes, well, uh. My name is Karak," the boy answered stiffly. "I've, uh, come to ask for help."

The man outright laughed at that, looking the boy up and down scrutinizingly. "Ah, a fledgling necromancer in need of guidance, eh? What makes you think I'd be willing to-"

Sans cut him off with a quick jerk of his hand, raising a dozen blue bones through the floor to pierce the necromancer from multiple angles. "blue means stop," he informed the man, who froze at the sensation of the phantom attacks going through him. "as long as you stay perfectly still, they won't hurt you."

The necromancer seemed strangely calm, considering. "I see. What a fascinating specimen you have there. Your skeleton talks?"

"Where is the army you've been gathering with the Sacred Peace?" Karak demanded, ignoring the question. "What are you planning on doing with it?"

"And your true intentions come forth," the necromancer intoned. "I didn't think you seemed the type to ask for help, even if you were truly training in the arts of the undead. Tell me, where did you find this skeleton of yours?"

Sans shoved his hands in his pockets. "that sounds an awful lot like not answering our questions," he said threateningly. "the army?"

The necromancer simply chuckled. "You seem to be under the false impression that you have the upper hand in this conversation. Sorry to inform you, but I won't be answering any of your questions."

"Just a reminder," Karak said, drawing his sword, "this isn't a blue attack."

"And a reminder for you as well," the necromancer droned, giving them a smirk. "Restraining a spellcaster is an exercise in futility."

With that, a hauntingly familiar pulse of magic emanated from the necromancer's still form, unhindered by the magic bones keeping him in place. Sans braced himself, trying to resist, but it was no use; the spell washed over him, pushing him backwards several feet, and then everything was still.

Karak attacked, but didn't make it before the necromancer commanded, "Dispel your magic attack, skeleton," and reluctantly Sans did so, clenching his teeth in frustration. Karak's swing went over the necromancer's head as the man ducked, spinning away from the worktable where he had more room to maneuver.

"Excellent," the necromancer laughed. "So it does work on you, despite your increased intelligence. Now, show me what you can do, my new minion: attack the boy."

Sans sent out a single bone towards Karak, who ignored it and swung his sword at the necromancer again. The man put up a barrier to block, but Karak added a magic sword beam to his blow, and the barrier shattered beneath it. "Sans, magic attacks will get rid of the barriers!" he shouted.

The skeleton nodded, and in a moment, he had several blasters powering up beams as they circled the necromancer.

"You will NOT attack me!" The necromancer cried at Sans.

"sure," Sans said with a grin. "but that doesn't mean i can't take out those barriers for karak. get him, kid."

The necromancer's eyes narrowed as Karak lunged at him, blade swinging. "Detain the boy the way you held me," he ordered. "Blue attack."

Karak plunged through the blue bones that erupted through the ground, taking the damage that came from moving and continuing forward despite the pain and the purple KR damage.

The necromancer threw up a barrier, which was immediately shattered by the gaster blasters, then he leapt out of the way. A moment later, he began casting a new spell, which darkened the room. "Skeleton: Do not move, do not attack. I will deal with the boy on my own."

Sans laughed, despite being suddenly frozen in place. "so you're not confident using an unknown weapon against him. he's scared, karak."

"And do not speak!" And thus, Sans was forced to watch the rest of the battle without even getting to add witty commentary.

Not that there was much of a battle left to watch. Karak looked to be in pretty bad condition from the blue attack, and the necromancer, while disheveled, had barely a scratch on him. The room lightened again as his new spell completed, and five zombies appeared in a circle around the boy.

Karak took a moment to yank a healing potion out of his backpack and down it. Sans winced, both in sympathy at the taste and because the boy hadn't let the poison run its course yet; the KR continued to drain at his HP for several seconds afterwards.

The necromancer ordered his minions forward, and the zombies lurched towards Karak obediently. The boy cut through one of them, leaving it in several pieces on the floor, before running again at the necromancer. Powering up his sword swing with another magic attack, he cut through the necromancer's barrier, but in the added time it took to do so, the zombies caught up to him.

The zombies individually weren't very strong, but still, five against one was hardly fair. After taking a few hits, Karak reset before they could finish him off.

* * *

File 7 Loaded

* * *

"Well, that didn't work either," Karak said with a sigh.

Sans reclined back on the stairs, putting his arms up above his head to use as a pillow. "that spell is really something else. the moment he gets it off, it's basically game over for us."

Karak paused, turning to look at him. "Yeah. We've pretty well established that."

"almost makes me wonder if i should be here at all," Sans mentioned, eyelights darkening. "maybe i'll drop you off at the necromancer's front door, then let you confront him while i head out of the tower."

He expected a protest from Karak, something about ditching him, or not being optimistic enough. Instead, he got silence.

Confused, he glanced over at his human friend, trying to find out why. Karak looked...

"that expression on your face... you've heard this plan before, haven't you?" Sans said slowly. "specifically, you've heard me suggest this plan before. recently."

Karak nodded, mouth set in a frown. "Yeah. We literally just tried that plan. Even after you got outside, his spell apparently has huge range, and he got to you anyway. He wanted to know why I was hiding you from him, so he brought you back up to the top of the tower and... Why do you not remember this?"

Sans pondered the turn of events. "i suppose i should have anticipated the long range, now that i think about it. considering he keeps his army somewhere far from here, and supposedly maintains control over it."

"But why don't you remember?" Karak asked, obviously distressed about this. "I don't want to go back to being the only one again. When you joined my party, I-"

Sans snapped his fingers. "that's it. 'party,' meaning like a group of adventurers, right? once we split up, we weren't a party anymore. and if i'm not part of your party, then i don't remember."

Karak's frown deepened for a moment, and then hope dawned in his eyes. "So, we should be back as a party now, right? You'll remember this reset, right?"

"well, i'll certainly try to." Sans winked. "pity i missed the last one. sounded exciting."

Karak snorted. "If you call me getting fried by gaster blasters again 'exciting,' then sure."

"so did you learn anything new? anything about the army?"

After thinking about that for a moment, Karak shook his head. "No. Once he realized I didn't create you or anything, he was too interested in figuring out what you were to bother really acknowledging that I existed. He wouldn't answer any of my questions."

Sans nodded slowly. "in that case, if we want answers, i'll probably have to play dumb. pretend that i can't speak or anything. he'll still be interested in me, but he'll assume any magic i use is magic that you're casting, and then even if he casts his spell, he won't know what he has, and he'll still listen to you. hopefully."

A smirk spread across Karak's face. "Me pretend to be a spellcaster, casting your abilities? That sounds like fun."

"sure. just raise your hands up and point at stuff when you want me to do something."

Karak nodded enthusiastically. "Sounds like a plan! Let's do this."

With the help of Sans's shortcuts, they made their way back to the final chamber, where the necromancer again stood by one of his worktables.

The man looked up as they entered. "I've been expecting you; though not quite so quickly, I'll admit." His gaze fell on Sans, and predictably, he smirked condescendingly. "Aww, you dressed up your skeleton. How cute."

Sans remained silent, keeping his eyelights off for good measure, since the other skeletons he'd seen here didn't seem to have them.

Karak stepped forward confidently. "I am the great mage, Karak!" he said, somehow with a completely straight face.

"Very impressive," the necromancer intoned, not actually impressed in the slightest. "Tell me, O great Karak: Why are you here?"

"I'll be the one asking questions here!" Karak tried hard to maintain his impromptu 'pompous spellcaster' façade. "I know you have an army of monsters, obtained by questionable means," he announced. "Where is it, and what are you planning on doing with it?"

The necromancer chuckled. "Direct and to the point, I see. How did you find out about my army?"

Karak hesitated, but quickly recovered. "That's beside the point. Answer my question, or I'll be forced to take you down!"

"I'd like to see you try," the necromancer said dryly, stepping away from his work table and assuming a ready position, hands held up to either side.

With a decisive nod, Karak reached a hand out toward the necromancer. "Blue attack!" he announced.

Sans complied, not moving as he summoned an array of cyan bones, aimed to tie down the necromancer as he had in a previous run. This time, the man was braced for the attack, and a wall of his barriers appeared around him.

The wall didn't move, however, and so the bones slid right through them, continuing forward to pierce the necromancer from all directions.

"Blue means stop," Karak informed him, parroting Sans's earlier words. "If you move, it'll hurt."

The necromancer laughed. "An interesting maneuver. It has a flaw, however." A moment later, his shields jerked upwards, shattering as they tore the bones to pieces. Wall and bone both faded, and the man stood at his full height, uninjured.

Before Karak could react, the necromancer held up a hand, wagging a finger at the boy. "Now, then, let me guess: You're trying to pin me down to give your single skeleton a chance at hitting me. That plan is flawed as well."

Then came the pulse of magic that Sans had been hoping wouldn't come this time around. It pushed him backwards again, and he felt himself grow cold.

Hastily, Karak called out, "Bone Wave!" and Sans unleashed one, starting from Karak's feet and tearing through the ground toward the necromancer.

"Skeleton, block the attack."

Sans's feet moved against his will—he couldn't block his own attack using his magic, so he'd have to block with his body instead—and the next thing he knew, he stood with a line of bones coming straight for him. He cut them off, letting the attack fall apart completely before it reached him.

"So I was right; You won't attack the skeleton." The necromancer gave him a bemused look. "You have a strange sentimentality towards your monster slave."

"Give him back!" Karak demanded. Sans could tell he was itching to unsheathe his sword, but the boy restrained himself for the sake of the spellcaster trick. "You'll regret this!"

The necromancer chuckled, placing a hand on Sans's shoulder, squeezing the collar bone beneath the skeleton's hoodie. "Oh, will I? No. I know your type; you carry a sword, though you claim to be a mage. I can tell you prefer direct attacks to subtlety of any kind, and with me holding your precious skeleton, there's nothing you can do to me."

Karak's lips pressed into a straight, determined line, and he jerked a hand straight up over his head, pointing at the ceiling. "Gravity!"

Sans couldn't do that without moving himself, so he just had to hope the necromancer didn't notice. In a fluid motion, he flung his hand upward, pinging the necromancer's soul blue and sending him falling towards the ceiling.

At first, the necromancer was startled, but he recovered surprisingly quickly, curling and spinning in midair so that he landed feet first on the stones above. Sans summoned a line of bones, thrusting them down from the ceiling towards the man. The necromancer seemed to sense them coming, and he jumped to avoid them, the highest bones barely brushing the heels of his boots. A miss.

The blue magic wore off as Sans's attention focused on the bone attack, and the necromancer's jump turned into a fall back to the floor, where he once again managed to land gracefully on his feet.

"A fascinating trick," he said calmly, dusting himself off. "I hope you don't mind terribly if mine is a bit more straightforward." He lifted both hands and the room darkened slightly as he began his spell.

It was the same spell as last time, Sans was pretty sure. _zombies incoming_ , he thought to himself. He barely waited for Karak to make a vague gesture before he summoned a wall of bones in a protective circle around the boy.

"Skeleton, block any attacks aimed at me," the necromancer commanded, and Sans found himself going to stand by the man's side, ready to intercept. Five zombies appeared at the edges of the room, outside Sans's circle, and began to shamble slowly towards Karak.

Sans caught Karak's eye and gave a slight shake of his head, hoping that the boy would know what he meant: no more gravity manipulation. With the skeleton now being watched closely by the necromancer, there'd be no way to use it without him noticing Sans's movements.

Karak grimaced, then pulled his sword out of its sheath. Sans didn't know if he'd gotten the right message or not, but it would have to do.

He sent his bone circle outward to ram into the oncoming zombies, several of which fell over at the impact. Those scrambled to their feet, but otherwise seemed fine for the most part, and the others didn't seem fazed at all.

Karak whipped into motion the moment he could see them, swinging his blade. One zombie dropped, now with one mostly severed leg hindering its efforts to get back up. Another took a blow to the chest, but stayed upright despite the damage.

One after another, they attacked him, a few blows landing hard. Karak grunted in pain, whirling and taking a swing at the closest zombie, which fell. Sans desperately tried to judge where to place another bone wall, but it seemed impossible to summon bones without also hitting Karak.

They'd taken their eyes off the necromancer for too long. Without warning, a loud crack resounded through the room, and a sheet of ice burst forth from the necromancer's hands, trapping Karak up to his shoulders. The ice slammed into the zombies as well, but the man didn't seem to care. He now had Karak pinned.

"Catch," the necromancer instructed, tossing something in Sans's direction. He caught it, thankfully by its handle; it was a long, twisted dagger. "Hold this to the boy's neck. Cut his throat if he tries to cast any magic."

That provided an amusing loophole. Feeling cold, and not because of the ice, Sans moved forward. Karak obediently held still, raising both eyebrows as Sans laid the dagger lightly across his throat. "What do we do?" the boy asked in a whisper.

"not sure," Sans returned softly. "he didn't tell me to kill you yet, so..."

Karak raised his voice. "What do you want from me?" he demanded.

The necromancer stepped forward, inspecting the damage to the room rather than giving his attention directly towards the boy. "I'm trying to decide. It would be rather poetic for me to kill you with your own precious skeleton, but perhaps..." He paused, seeming to muse this over for a minute. "Yes, perhaps I'll let you be my harbinger."

"Harbinger?" Karak seemed to have some difficulty even pronouncing the word. "What?"

Turning to face him, the necromancer smiled cruelly. "You will carry a message: The world shall soon know of the many exploits of Lord Antagon the Conqueror."

 _so he does have a name_ , Sans thought sardonically. _what is it with humans and not introducing themselves when you first see them?_

"You see," the necromancer continued, "I have already tested my army's might, and it is a glorious thing to behold. Entire townships have fallen to it in a single night! Soon, I shall have this entire kingdom under MY control!"

Karak's mouth twisted into a scowl. "Entire townships... Wait... You've been testing your army?"

The necromancer chuckled. "Of course, stupid boy. How else would I be able to tell if it's ready?"

"Where is your army right now?" Karak asked, a strange note entering his voice. He seemed to forget that he had a knife to his throat. "What villages have you attacked?"

The necromancer waved away his questions. "That is of no matter to you. I-"

"You're the one who attacked Genrik, aren't you?" Angry tears were welling up in Karak's eyes now. "You're the one responsible for all those deaths... Tarvak... Maren... Old man Olifer..."

"Ah, this is personal, then!" The necromancer grinned. "Even better. You got to witness firsthand the power of my army. What a perfect messenger you'll be."

"Why?" Karak demanded. "Why do you even want to conquer the kingdom in the first place? Isn't it just fine the way it is? We were at peace!"

"Peace?" The necromancer cackled. "What use do I have for peace, when I could have power?"

"Is that all this is to you?! Power?!"

The necromancer simply continued to laugh. "What else is there, boy? Why do I conquer?" He smiled dangerously. "Because. I. Can."

"i see..." Sans pulled the dagger away from Karak and backed off a step, still not looking at the necromancer as he let out a hollow chuckle. "you can. and because you can, you have to. i get it now. you're the kind of person who won't ever be happy."

At once, the necromancer's glee disappeared. "What's this? Skeleton, why aren't you following my orders? And... did it just talk?"

"karak... i've heard enough. reset."

Karak nodded, tears streaming down his cheeks.

* * *

File 7 Loaded

* * *

"Sans..." The boy kept his gaze on the dust-strewn floor, hair shading his face as his fists clenched by his sides. "He needs to die."

"yup."

"I don't care anymore about 'getting more information' or 'teaching him a lesson.' He needs to die."

Sans nodded. "i agree."

"I'm serious, Sans. You can't change my mind about this. I know you'd rather we try to be pacifists, but I just can't here. He needs to-" Karak stopped, finally realizing what Sans was saying. "Wait, you agree?"

Sans gave a shrug. "here's a question for you. do you think even the worst person can change? that everyone can be a good person, if they just try?"

He turned away, eye lights dim. "my bro believes so, with all his heart. the world sure would be a better place if it were true. but the trouble is, some people don't want to try to be good. some people can't be taught lessons. some people refuse to be saved. this guy won't ever be happy with what he has; he'll always want more. so when do you draw the line and say enough is enough?"

"Wherever that line is," Karak said hotly, "he crossed it a long time ago."

"agreed." Sans bent down to scoop up a handful of dust, letting it slide from his fingers back to the ground. There was no way to hold a proper monster funeral for the poor creatures who had suffered here. "this necromancer had plenty of potential for good. the advances he could have made towards soul theory and spell creation alone could have been... but he didn't. he's passed up too many opportunities to change."

Karak unsheathed his sword, the anger on his face only outshined by his sheer determination. "Then, for Genrik... for the monsters he tortured here... and for all the other towns he's destroyed... Let's take him down."

With that, they set off. Their march up the stairs was steady and resolute, despite Sans's slightly disorienting shortcuts.

 _Papyrus would have loved the puzzles we keep skipping over_ , the thought came to Sans unbidden, and he grimaced, not stopping his climb.

Going back to actually do the puzzles sounded strangely inviting, though he knew it was just his subconscious trying to put off the inevitable. Though he truly felt they'd come to the right conclusion regarding the man's judgement, the idea of actually doling out the punishment daunted him a little. He'd never actually had to do that before.

Thankfully, they reached the top before he had to contemplate that much further.

The necromancer stood by his work table. "I've been expecting you," he said without turning around. "Though not-"

Sans didn't feel like listening to this spiel yet again. He reached out and grabbed the man's soul in his blue magic, slamming downward with full force.

The necromancer was knocked off his feet, though he managed to roll back upright, jumping up to avoid the line of bones that pierced the floor just seconds later. Sans sent another wall towards him from the side, much more complex this time, and though the necromancer wove through them with an expert-level grace, he couldn't avoid all of them. Deep gashes began to spill purple liquid—KR damage kicking in full force.

Sans wasn't done yet, though. With a snap of his fingers, six gaster blasters popped into existence in a half circle around the necromancer, and one by one they fired off, nearly filling the space of the whole room. Only three of them hit their mark, but three was more than enough.

The man fell to his knees, gasping for air as he clutched his wounds, staring down at the purple karma coursing through his veins. "What... sorcery is this?" he managed to get out. "A skeleton that can do magic? Impossible..."

The KR damage ticked his HP further and further down as he struggled back to his feet again, a large grin growing on his face. "But fascinating. I must... study..." His words cut off with a strangled note as Karak leapt forward, slamming his blade deep into the man's chest.

"This is for Genrik, you disgusting creep," the boy said scathingly.

"go to hell," Sans added calmly, walking up to stand by Karak. The boy's face was like stone as he ripped his blade free. The necromancer dropped, first back to his knees and then collapsing entirely onto the ground.

Strangely, the man began to laugh, body shaking with the effort. "You really think... that death will stop me? I am a necromancer, a Master of Death. I am immortal. I am all-powerful. I am-"

"dead." Sans summoned another array of bones, slamming them directly into the necromancer's soul itself. It shattered.

... and then reformed, now facing the wrong direction. It shone pure white.

The necromancer got back up, his laughter growing stronger as he pulled the bones from his body with harsh jerks of his hands. A faint glow surrounded his entire being, green and flame-like, especially around his head. When he looked up, his face looked almost skeletal, like the skin was stretched especially tight around his skull.

"I told you," the man—the monster—yelled with a cackle. "Death will not stop me! I have too much still to accomplish to let something like that take me down! I will reign supreme! I will-"

Karak interrupted him this time, with a magic-enhanced sword blow to the neck that took the necromancer's head clean off.

The necromancer screamed, the green flames seeming to consume him, before he turned completely to dust.

Karak sat down heavily, breathing hard as he tried to collect himself. Sans laid a hand on his shoulder, grimacing as he felt the weight of new EXP on his soul.

* * *

Karak has leveled up! (24)

Sans has leveled up! (2)

Sans has leveled up! (3)

Sans has leveled up! (4)

Sans has leveled up! (5)

* * *

Sans shuddered, but knew that he deserved the Levels of Violence. That takedown had been particularly brutal... and he found that he was perfectly okay with that.

"He's gone," Karak mumbled, tears running down his face again. Despite them, his eyes shone with determination. "We did it. We won."

Sans squeezed his shoulder, giving the boy a hesitant smile. "yeah. we did."

"So where's the Sacred Peace?"

As if in answer, the building began to shake, cracks suddenly spider webbing out across the ceiling. Before the two adventurers could move, chunks of stone rained down upon them from above... and disappeared into nothing before they could hit the ground.

Above them, the ceiling was now much higher, and a hint of gold sparkled from the top. Then the golden Sacred Peace fell downward towards them, much slower than it should have, until it hovered before them in the air.

Karak opened his pouch, revealing the other two gold spheres, which rose up out of the pack to join the first one. "The Sacred Peaces are together," Karak whispered. "Now we'll get our wish. Sans, you can finally go home."


	8. The End

Home... It was something Sans hadn't let himself think about for a while.

He gazed up as the Sacred Peaces—one small, glowing orb from the tower and the other two from Karak's pouch—spun and danced in the air above them as though giddy to be back together again, a faint light shining from each one. For the first time in a long time, Sans allowed himself to dare to hope.

Home... he could go home...

Almost immediately, doubts began to creep in, of course. After all, nothing he'd ever done or ever could do had worked to get him home before. Could this relic really do what he never could? Could it really do the impossible?

"Go on," Karak urged with an encouraging grin. "Make your wish."

Sans chuckled. "you sound like you're eager to have me out of your hair," he joked. Even as he did so, it hit him that going home meant saying goodbye to his new friend. If this worked, they would probably never see each other again.

Karak seemed to have already realized that, judging by the way unshed tears shone in his eyes despite his smile. "You know, I'm really glad to have met you, Sans. I'll miss you."

The skeleton got to his feet, reaching a hand out to Karak, who took it firmly. "i'll miss you too, kid. good luck with your village and... everything..." he trailed off as another thought occurred to him. "wait. your quest. karak, didn't you say this thing only gives one wish before breaking up and scattering again?"

Karak looked away, his cheeks slightly red. He tried to pull away from Sans, but the skeleton held him fast. "Yeah," the boy finally answered. "I know. But you don't have to worry about me. My wish isn't important, especially since we defeated the person responsible for attacking my town. I've finished my quest."

Sans shook his head. "that doesn't mean you don't still have a wish to protect everyone; don't deny that. my wish of going home seems trivial compared to that."

"Don't give me that," Karak protested, "I know how much your brother means to you. I saw what you were like when you lost your hope of going home. I can't let you do that to yourself for my sake."

"and i can't let you endanger your whole world for mine," Sans returned stubbornly.

Karak pulled his hand away from Sans with a small huff of frustration and began pacing the scorched floor. The sun starting to set outside shone through the windows behind him, casting shadows across the whole room. Karak sighed. "I just wish we could both have our wishes."

A faint giggle chimed through the room, causing them both to look up. A moment later, two beams of light shown down from the gathered relics like spotlights, one on each adventurer.

Sans stared up at it for a moment before chuckling at his friend. "karak, you're brilliant."

"I was just..." Karak stammered, a grin spreading across his face. "So we can both wish on it! Sans, this is great!"

"you make your wish first," Sans suggested. "i want to see what you wish for before i go."

That dampened Karak's spirits a little. "Yeah. Just... give me a moment. I've been spending all day convincing myself that I was giving my wish to you. I gotta figure out how to word exactly what it is I want."

Sans nodded. "take your time," he said gently. It didn't need to be said that the boy also wanted to put off saying goodbye to his friend for the last time. The two of them sat down on the floor back to back in silence.

Finally, Karak sighed. "Okay. So, I told you already what I'd originally wanted to wish for..."

"stopping monsters from attacking your village," Sans remembered.

"Right. I thought I could wish for them to go away, or disappear, but I was thinking about it wrong the whole time. They don't have to disappear to solve the problem."

Sans smiled, leaning back against Karak. "so that's it. you're going to wish that monsters and humans can just get along."

Karak turned and grinned at the skeleton over his shoulder. "Even better." He looked up and directed his next words to the ancient relics above their heads. "Sacred Peaces, I've decided on my wish! I wish that the monsters in this world... were like Sans and the monsters in his world."

Sans's jaw actually dropped open. "what?"

A chiming sound rang through the room and the Sacred Peaces began to twirl around each other again, faster and faster and faster. Between them, a moving picture appeared: monsters of various types wandering the land.

A strange gust of wind swept through and around them, and when it passed, most of the monsters wore clothing. They looked around themselves in awe, as though waking up for the very first time.

From down the stairs, Sans and Karak suddenly heard faint voices. "There's lava in here! How are we supposed to get out?"

"Oh hush, you. It's fine, we can just jump over it."

"But what if there's lava in the other rooms, too?"

"There isn't any lava in the other rooms. We've been through some of them, remember?"

"Oh yeah... Huh, I wasn't really thinking about it at the time."

"Of course you weren't; we weren't really thinking about anything until a minute ago."

"Yeah... Weird, huh?"

The voices grew distant, and Sans got to his feet, turning to stare at Karak. "welp. i do believe you're responsible for having granted sentience to an entire race of people. congratulations."

Karak looked pleased with himself, also standing up. "Thanks. I figure, if they're as easy to get along with as you are, humanity shouldn't have any problems with them any more. Life will be good here."

The images faded from the Sacred Peaces, and their twirling slowed to a stop. After a short pause, the second spotlight shone back down on Sans. It was time for his wish, that light seemed to say.

The skeleton shoved his hands in his pockets. "yeah," he said with a sad smile. "things here will be great. and it sounds like you already have some potential friends to make downstairs. so i guess this is it, then."

Karak swallowed hard, then unexpectedly pulled Sans into a hug. "I really am going to miss you," he said emphatically. "I'll never forget you."

Sans remained frozen for a moment before relaxing, letting out a short sigh, and returning the hug. "i'll miss you too, karak. heh, and this will definitely be something i'll always remember. no matter what."

The boy squeezed him tightly, then let him go, stepping back and wiping at his face with one sleeve. Then he gave Sans a wide grin, though his eyes were still full of tears. "Go on, then. Don't keep Papyrus waiting."

Sans nodded, and looked up towards the Sacred Peaces. Time to see if this actually worked. "i wish..." he hesitated, then started again. "i wish that i could be home with my brother."

The relics began to spin again, a bright light filling the room. Sans felt something—another gust of wind?—lift him up completely off the floor.

"Goodbye, Sans!" Through the light, he could still make out Karak, waving madly at him.

Sans waved back. "heh. where i'm from, there are no goodbyes. only see-you-laters."

Karak grinned. "Then, I'll see you later!"

"good luck, kiddo."

And then the light completely consumed his vision. Everything was white... then everything went black.

* * *

Sans's slippered feet set down slowly on hard ground, but he kept his eyes closed for the moment, almost afraid of what he might find. Had it worked?

He didn't have to ponder very long. Directly in front of him, Sans suddenly heard a door open. "SANS? THERE YOU ARE! I'VE BEEN LOOKING ALL OVER FOR YOU! HAVE YOU BEEN NAPPING AT THE FRONT DOOR THIS WHOLE TIME?!"

Sans opened his eyes, a grin spreading across his face at his brother's voice. Papyrus stood with gloved hands on his hip bones as he stood there in the doorway of their new house on the surface. He wasn't sure where he'd expected to end up, but this was where his brother was, so it was good enough for him.

"hey, bro." Sans tried to act casual, but couldn't help himself. A moment later, he threw his arms around his brother, holding him tight.

Papyrus seemed more confused than anything else, but he returned the hug with his usual vigor. "WHILE I AM MILDLY CONCERNED AT YOUR STRANGE BEHAVIOR, BROTHER, I AM ALWAYS WILLING TO PROVIDE BROTHERLY AFFECTION. NYEHEHEH!"

Sans made himself let go, smiling up at Papyrus. "sorry. i just really needed a bone-a-fide great papyrus hug."

Papyrus made a choked sound of frustration at the pun. "REALLY, SANS? YOU REALLY KNOW HOW TO RUIN A PERFECTLY GOOD SPONTANEOUS HUG! COME ON, GET IN HERE. YOU PROMISED TO HELP MOVE ALL THESE BOXES!"

"i promised no such thing," Sans claimed with a chuckle, but he stepped inside.

"BUT REALLY, WHERE WERE YOU?" Papyrus asked, pushing him to move faster down the front hallway. "I WAS JUST STARTED TO GET WORRIED ABOUT YOU. YOU REALLY DID FALL ASLEEP SOMEWHERE, DIDN'T YOU?"

Sans shrugged, perfectly happy to let Papyrus guide his footsteps. "you could say that. had a bit of a problem trying to dismantle the machine, but it seems to have worked out alright anyway."

Papyrus snorted. "WHY WERE YOU EVEN BOTHERING WITH THAT CONTRAPTION IN THE FIRST PLACE? IT WAS JUST FINE WHERE IT WAS."

"yeah... you're probably right." Sans just shrugged again. "i just wanted to make sure we could move forward. y'know, without dwelling on the past anymore."

That made Papyrus stop, and he leaned down to look Sans in the eye. After a moment, he sighed overdramatically and patted Sans on the head. "WE WERE ALREADY DOING THAT, SILLY. BUT IF IT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER, THEN I'M GLAD YOU DID IT. NOW, THE BEST WAY TO 'MOVE FORWARD', IF THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT TO DO, IS TO HELP ME WITH THESE BOXES!"

Sans nodded happily. "i will. in just a minute. you don't happen to have any leftover spaghetti, do you?"

"OF COURSE I DO! I'LL GET YOU SOME!" Papyrus looked pleased by the idea of Sans wanting his cooking that badly, and he rushed off towards the kitchen.

Sans watched him go, then sighed to himself with a real smile. "yeah... it's good to be home."


End file.
